


Legends That Never Were

by kitkatt0430



Series: The "Never Were" Verse [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Also the Vandal Savage two parter but with a more interesting take on the plot, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Basically the lead up to the crossover event from Flash Season 2 with more Hartley, Because Hartley deserves more love, Because what we had on the show(s) was actually kind of bland, Canon-Typical Violence, Chapter 3 - Ray Palmer has finally arrived so there's one Arrow character anway, Episode: s02e05 The Darkness and the Light, Episode: s02e06 Enter Zoom, Episode: s02e07 Gorilla Warfare, Episode: s02e08 Legends of Today, Episode: s04e08 Legends of Yesterday, Hartley and Thea are pranksters, M/M, Oliver actually manages not to make decisions that he knows will screw him over down the road, So if you're here for the Arrow character then you're gonna have to be patient for a few chapters, Takes a while for the Arrow characters to show up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-10-19 13:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10640601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatt0430/pseuds/kitkatt0430
Summary: When Cisco starts dating Kendra Saunders, the lovely barista from Jitters, Hartley is struck by an epiphany.  He has a crush on Cisco.  Not that he has time to lament his typical bad timing and worse luck.  First Zoom shows up with his 'more speedy than thou' attitude, deliberately breaking Barry's back and seeking to strike terror into Central City.  (Not to mention that there's something familiar about his voice that Hartley can't quite place...) Then it turns out that Cisco's new girlfriend is the reincarnation of a warrior priestess from Ancient Egypt and is being pursued by an immortal who has been murdering her over and over again for centuries.  Oh... and she has a soul mate, who isn't Cisco.  Talk about awkward.





	1. In Which Hartley Realizes (Too Late) He Has A Crush

Hartley had been on edge all day.  From the moment Dr. Wells 2.0 showed up (or Harry, as Cisco later dubbed him), Hartley had been itching to hit something or, rather, someone.  Leaving for coffee with Cisco and Barry had helped at first - Cisco striking out with the barista at Jitters had been immensely amusing - but then Cisco had a vision, sending Barry off after Dr. Light... and leaving Hartley in the uncomfortable position of knowing that he knew something about Cisco that the engineer most certainly wouldn't want Hartley to know.

Namely, that Cisco was a meta.

When Stein had confronted Cisco about his powers weeks earlier, Hartley had also been headed down to Cisco's lab to talk to him about what was bothering him.  He'd known something was up with him - Cisco had known things that he couldn't have possibly just 'guessed' like he'd claimed - but the reality of it... and if Cisco wasn't ready to tell his friends, then there was no way he'd want Hartley to know.  They might've buried the hatchet but there was too much history between them and Hartley doubted Cisco would ever like or trust Hartley even half as much as Barry or Caitlin.  So when Hartley realized where the conversation was going, he'd backtracked as fast as he could.  Yet, well passed where anyone else would've been out of auditory range, Hartley could still hear Cisco clearly admit to being a meta.  To getting visions.

To being afraid.

And there was nothing Hartley could do or say that wouldn't make things worse for Cisco.  So he kept his mouth shut and pretended he hadn't heard anything.  But, watching Cisco's shaky reaction to the latest vision, Hartley wondered if maybe staying quiet had been a mistake.

He mentally debated back and forth as they left the coffee shop and headed towards the STAR Labs van they'd taken.  As they approached the parking spot they'd left it at, Hartley came to a decision and asked, "are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Just... you look like you've seen a ghost."

"I said I'm fine, Hartley!" Cisco snapped, sharp tone triggering a feeling of defensiveness in Hartley.

He had to bite back on the instinctual urge to snap back with an insult and take a few slow, deep breaths before letting out a frustrated sigh.  "Give me the keys; I'm driving back."

"I..."

"You look terrible.  If you don't want to tell me what's going on with you, I get it.  Really.  It's not like I'm exactly top of your list of trusted confidants.  But don't try to tell you're fine when you're not, Cisco.  We're supposed to be looking out for each other, especially with Wells two-point-oh or Harry or whatever we call him, hanging around.  So let me drive and you take the time to sort yourself out before having to face that guy again."  This time, Cisco handed over the keys, wordless and, maybe, a little grateful.

When they reached the first red light on the way back to STAR Labs, Cisco muttered, "you know, you tried to tell me you were fine at the Flash Day fiasco when you pretty clearly needed stitches."

"I couldn't even feel that cut -"

"Pretty sure at that size it would be called a gash."

"Cut," Hartley repeated, but he felt a little amused at the reminder of how Cisco had been fluttering around him insisting the paramedics check him out immediately.  "And it didn't need stitches.  I was just fine with a butterfly bandage."  He paused and then said, "you froze that day, when Atom Smasher showed up.  At the time I thought you'd just had a moment of panic and then got over it, but... it was a lot like what just happened at Jitters."

Cisco turned to stare out the passenger side window and the light changed to green, so Hartley started driving again.  He tried to figure out what to say to lift the awkward tension since, clearly, bringing up what he'd noticed was a bad idea after all.  Like he'd said before leaving the parking lot, he wasn't someone Cisco would actually want to confide in.

"I might..." Cisco said, tone almost dull, lifeless.  "That is, I..." this time his voice cracked a little.

"You don't have to tell me," Hartley said quickly, glancing over at the other man.

Cisco's hands were clenched into fists.  

"Seriously," Hartley tried to assure him, "not until you're ready, okay?"

"I trust you, Hartley."  Cisco's tone was oddly insistent.  "I'm a... a meta."  The words came out so small, from someone usually so loud and confident.

It actually hurt to hear Cisco like that.

Hartley wished he could take his frustration out on Harry but, no, he had to remember that Harry wasn't responsible for the actions of his counterpart.  Or, really, the actions of the man who'd murdered Harry's counterpart and stolen his face.

Not for the first time, Hartley had to idly wonder just how much of a psychopath a person had to be in order to wake up and see the face of their victim in the mirror every single morning for fifteen years and never crack from horror or guilt.  The whole idea of it just made him sick to his stomach and he had to shake it off to concentrate on driving and Cisco's confession.

"I get these... vibes.  Like when I saw the timeline where... where I died."

"I'm sorry," Hartley told him, quiet and contemplative.  "All the bad things that I've gone through in my life and nothing's ever made me feel more like a victim than the moment I woke up after the accelerator exploded and I knew I was different."  He took a hand off the wheel for a moment to reflexively touch his ear, fingers brushing against one of the hearing aids that were now so much a part of him that it was always stranger to have them out than in.  "Changed.  I wouldn't wish that feeling of being... violated on anyone."

"I thought, at first, that it was just a one off.  A quirk of having died in one timeline and survived in another, but... Wells told me..." Cisco breathed out sharply.  "He told me I was a meta and that he was so proud of the person I would become.  That I'd owe it all to him."

"You don't owe that man anything," Hartley told him unhesitatingly.  "Whatever you choose to do with your visions... whoever you choose to become, it will be in spite of Wells influence, not because of him.  He could never have understood that."

"Thank you, Hartley."  The rest of the ride was silent, but, as Hartley pulled into the STAR Labs parking lot, Cisco spoke up again.  "When this bank robber thing is over, I'm going to tell the others.  I wasn't... I wasn't sure I was ready to tell anyone, but... I'm not really alone in this, am I?"

"No.  You're not."  Hartley turned off the engine and handed off the keys back to Cisco, since he drove this particular van the most.  "Think you're ready to face Harry again?"

Cisco shook his head and wrinkled his nose.  "Not in the slightest.  But let's do this anyway."

* * *

"You know how to use the mask to find Dr. Light?" Jay asked, voicing the same incredulity that Hartley felt.

By now, Hartley's sense of being on edge had built up his stress levels to the point where a headache was throbbing between his temples.  The aspirin he'd taken not too long ago had yet to kick in, but he could honestly say it wasn't all Harry's fault any more.  In fact, Hartley blamed it squarely on Doctor Light.  (She hadn't even earned that title, dammit.)  Because of the Earth-2 meta, Hartley had to sit in the van with Jay and Caitlin feeling like a third wheel while the two of them flirted.  He'd landed awkwardly on his wrist when Doctor light flipped the van over and he was lucky not to have broken it, though it was sprained (yet another reason for the aspirin).  Hartley was pretty much ready to call it a night once Caitlin finished wrapping his arm.

Hartley just hoped that whatever Harry's big idea was didn't end up requiring all their help.

"All we have to do, is give it to him."  Harry turned to look at Cisco and Hartley straightened in his seat, only refraining from getting up entirely because Caitlin gave him a look.

She tightened the wrap one last time and then handed him a sling, turning to observe what was going on for herself once Hartley took it.

"Why me?" Cisco asked, voice a little panicky because he knew very well why him.

Somehow, Harry knew about Cisco's visions.

"Because, you have powers."

Barry reacted with incredulity at first, then frowning in concern at the look on Cisco's face as the engineer said, "what are you talking about?"

"I developed this watch," Harry said, pulling his left hand out of his pocket and flipping open the casing, "to detect meta humans."  He brought it near Barry and it hummed and beeped, displaying red. 

"That's enough, Harry," Hartley snapped, standing up this time, still gripping the sling in his good left hand (and why did it have to be his right that was injured?).  It was probably for the best that Caitlin was distracted, or she'd likely be chiding him for not putting the sling on.  (Or possibly for gripping it so hard that his knuckles were turning white.

Instead of listening, Harry walked over to Hartley and held out his arm again, clearly expecting to get some other color.  Instead, it displayed red again.

"I said that was enough," Hartley snarled, dropping the sling to grab on to Harry's arm with a bruising grip.

The older man gave Hartley a startled look.  "Huh, I didn't think you had any powers."  But then, Hartley hadn't let Harry get him alone all day.  Barry, Caitlin, and Cisco had all, at some point, been alone in the room with man and, while Barry's meta status was obvious, the rest of them... Harry must've been gambling on Hartley being 'normal'.  It was official; Harry, and not Doctor Light, could take all the blame for Hartley's headache.

"It isn't any of your damn business," Hartley informed him coldly, tightening his grip when Harry tried to pull away.  "Wave that watch in my face again and I'll break it."  He shoved the other man away from him - and away from Cisco - then bent over to pick up his sling and pull it over his head and shoulders, sliding his right arm into it.

"What are your powers?" Harry asked, staring at Hartley in fascination.

"What part of 'it's not any of your god damned business' is so hard for you to understand?" Hartley snapped.

"Fine."  Harry massaged his wrist for a moment, and then tried to move towards Caitlin.  When Hartley stepped in front of her, just enough to block Harry's path, the man sighed and told them, "it displays blue for normal humans."  He turned towards Cisco, but Hartley, once again, moved himself between Harry and his target.

"You know, maybe violating another person's privacy is considered totally normal on Earth-2.  Obviously, I wouldn't know.  But here on this Earth, it's considered a really shitty thing to do.  I swear, if you don't shut the hell up right now and..." there was a hand on Hartley's arm and he shut up, glancing back to see Cisco giving him a sort of rueful look, somewhere between grateful and resigned.

"It's fine, Hartley.  I mean, I was going to tell everyone after Doctor Light was caught anyway and since that's not happening any time soon if we can't find her..." he laughed hollowly, dropping his hand away.  "So... turns out that the whole nightmares of dying in another timeline thing?  Actually a manifestation of me being a meta.  I wasn't... I wasn't trying to hide it from any of you, I just... I wasn't ready to accept it myself, you know?"

"Cisco, we could have been supporting you through this," Caitlin spoke up quietly, confused.  "You didn't have to go through this alone."

"I know.  And... I wanted to tell you guys.  But... I was afraid."

"Afraid of... of what?" Barry asked.

Cisco turned away from them all, as if gathering his strength to reply.  "Dr. Wells said my powers came from the Dark Matter released by the accelerator."

Hartley heard Harry flinch.

"He said I'd thank him, one day.  That... he was proud of me.  What if... I end up as someone like him."

"I don't think any of us getting powers would make us suddenly evil, Cisco," Caitlin soothed.  "Wells may have been responsible for creating the Dark Matter storm that hit Central City, but he didn't get to decide who'd get powers and who wouldn't.  The only one he could be relatively sure of was Barry and even that was a gamble.  I mean... you almost weren't even in the city that night, right?"

Barry nodded.  "Nearly got stuck in Starling... er, Star City, helping out Oliver."

"Wells didn't chose your powers for you, Cisco," Caitlin continued, "and only you can choose how you use them."

"Funny... Hartley said something similar earlier when he asked me about how I spaced out at Jitters."

"You knew?" Barry asked Hartley sharply.

"Obviously," Harry muttered under his breath.

"I guessed.  I was going to let the subject drop, unlike some people," Hartley gave Harry another cold glare, "since Cisco didn't seem ready to deal with it yet."  He paused and then confessed, "I also overheard Professor Stein talking to you about it, Cisco.  My lab's near yours and... it takes a while before I can get out of hearing range these days."

"Why didn't you say anything then?" Cisco asked, not accusing just... surprised.

Hartley shrugged.  "It wasn't any of my business.  Besides... I didn't think anything I'd have to say would actually help you feel better about the situation."

"I'm glad you changed your mind today.  What you said earlier... it helped a lot."

"Can this little heart to heart take a rain check?" Harry groused.  "Doctor Light is still at large and we need Ramon's visions to track her down."

"You know," Hartley said, tone deceptively light and conversational, "I wanted to ruin Doctor Wells' life in return for how he basically ruined mine."  He smiled and knew it wasn't a particularly nice expression.  "After all, while I may have been raised to believe in hell, I'm not sure I actually believe the dead can suffer.  But... in the end, he's dead anyway.  And, legally speaking, someone who is already dead can't be murdered... right?"  Hartley glanced at Barry the same time Harry did.

Looking between the two men, Barry finally said, "I'm not sure there's a good answer to that question.  Hartley..." he let a warning creep into his voice and, reluctantly, Hartley backed off.

Jay chuckled darkly from where he'd been watching their little drama play out and Hartley felt oddly disconcerted by the sound.  "Rathaway, I think I like your style."

"Thanks," he responded dryly.

"Cisco... how do your abilities work?" Jay asked gently.

"Uh... I get these feelings sometimes.  These vibes.  Visions of the... breachers when they come to this Earth.  But I'm not sure what triggers it; sometimes it just happens... sometimes it's when I'm touching something of theirs."

"So touch the mask," Harry demanded.  "You want to catch Doctor Light?  Then do it."

Hand shaking with nerves, Cisco reached out to do exactly that.  But when he touched the mask... nothing.  He tried again and then sighed, pulling his hand away.  "I don't think it's working."

"Try again," Harry told him.  When Cisco didn't react, Harry snapped louder, "try again!"

"No."  Barry shook his head and, this time, he got in Harry's way.  "You need to back off, Harry.  You're not helping."

"You had a vision when the Atom Smasher interrupted the ceremony to give the Flash the key to the city," Hartley said quietly.  "And one today at Jitters... but what other visions have you had?"

"Um... I had two visions about Sand Demon," he said.  "And, uh... that's pretty much it."

"Any of them on purpose?" Hartley pressed.  He had something of a theory, but...

"The second time I vibed Sand Demon it was sort of on purpose.  It was right after he took Patty and... I ran to my lab to see if maybe I could get another vision.  It was pure luck that I did."

"Maybe... but maybe not.  The situation with Atom Smasher was one where you'd have been in a heightened state of alertness, probably had a bit of an adrenaline rush going.  Don't know about that first vision of Sand Demon but the second one... another tense situation and you ran all the way down to your lab... and today, well... getting shot down by a cute barista probably..."

"I get it, Hartley," Cisco said tightly.  "Geez, and just when you were starting to be such a nice guy, you have to back track and be an asshole."

"I might have reached my niceness limit," Hartley joked, smiling a little.  "I'm thinking maybe adrenaline is the trigger."

"So I should, what, run a few laps first?"  Cisco wrinkled his nose.  "Besides, what about the visions I had of Wells killing me in that other time line?  Those came in my sleep."

"Right after Snart kidnapped you and your brother," Hartley retorted, adding in a softer tone, "maybe you were having nightmares about that and those triggered your visions?"

"M-maybe."  Cisco's hands tightened into fists for a moment before relaxing.  "That leaves me... where?  Back to running laps?"

"Or we could just let Harry piss you off.  He seems to excel at making people angry, after all," Hartley observed, shrugging nonchalantly.

Cisco snorted in amusement, smiling faintly.

"Enhanced hearing."

The smile slipped off Cisco's face.

Hartley scowled, turning to face Harry again and, infuriatingly, the man smirked and raised an eyebrow.  "You could over hear a conversation in a different room that, presumably, had the door shut, and it takes you a while to get out of hearing range?  Seems pretty obvious now that those hearing aids of yours aren't meant to help you cope with the average sort of auditory impairment."

"Harry..."

"Just what is your hearing range now, anyway?" the older man interrupted and pointedly glanced over Hartley's shoulder; when Hartley followed his gaze, there was Cisco, hand's clenched into fists.

This was not what he had in mind when he said Harry ought to piss Cisco off.  But Hartley stayed quiet, biting back the angry retort on the tip of his tongue.

"Or have you not tested that yet?"  Whatever Harry might've said next was cut off by a quiet gasp from Cisco.

Hartley turned to see that Cisco was touching the mask, sporting the same dazed expression he'd worn earlier that day at Jitters, and Hartley felt his stomach clench uncomfortably.  He'd just let Harry push Cisco into this.  His arm throbbed in time with his headache and Hartley suddenly felt a little light headed.

He wanted to go lay down.

Within seconds, the blank look faded from Cisco's face and he was telling Barry where to find Doctor Light.  Then Barry was running off and Caitlin was fussing over Cisco... and Hartley slipped out of the room to catch his breath in the hallway.

Someone, however, followed him out.  "I'm sorry."

"I did say you ought to tick him off," Hartley replied stiffly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with his good hand and then adjusting his glasses.

"I'm sure you'll find this hard to believe, but I don't actually enjoy upsetting people."  

Snorting softly in disbelief, Hartley made up his mind.  "I've got a headache," Hartley finally said.  "And I can't drive with my arm like this.  Tell Cisco and Caitlin that I'm going to try and catch a nap in the server room.  The white noise helps with my headaches," he elaborated when Harry visibly restrained himself from asking a question.  "I'd like a ride home from one of them once Doctor Light's been safely locked away."

Harry nodded.

"I do know what my hearing range is," Hartley said quietly, pointedly not telling the other man just what that range was, "and without my hearing aids, I'm effectively deaf because everything turns into a piercing tinnitus."  He paused and then added, "I was outed as gay when I was eighteen.  My very conservative Christian parents told me I could either go to the conversion therapy they signed me up for or I could get out of their house and never come back."

"They disowned you?" Harry sounded genuinely outraged.

"Yeah.  Being homeless was preferable to the so-called therapy.  But that's why I take offense to people being outed without their consent and why I don't think you really understand just how fucked up what you did in there was.  You owe him a pretty damn good apology."

Studying Hartley for a long moment, Harry finally nodded.  "I'll let them know what you said about needing a ride home."

"Good."

* * *

Someone was shaking Hartley awake and, groggily, he blinked a few times to try and clear his sight.  But it wouldn't...

The someone who woke him handed him his glasses, humming in amusement at Hartley's sleep impaired state.

He tried to take the glasses with his right hand, remembering too late that his wrist was sprained and he hissed in pain.  The humming stopped.

"Are you okay?"

"Just forgot about my arm being hurt," Hartley muttered, taking the glasses with his left hand and, a bit awkwardly, flicked the stems open so that he could slide them onto his face.  "Thanks Cisco."

"What happened with Doctor Light?"

"Barry was able to move fast enough to create 'speed mirages'.  She was so distracted trying to pinpoint where he really was that Barry knocked her out from behind without a problem.  She's down in the pipeline for now; we'll see about moving her to Iron Heights once we can figure out how to explain her away without causing problems for Linda or, you know, sounding crazy while talking about multi-verse theory."

"So, what're we doing with Harry?"

"Well... he was helpful coming up with the mirage plan and... despite how much of a dick he is, he's useful.  He can't exactly show himself around Central City what with our Earth's Harrison Wells' face being so well known and his death being common knowledge... and he'd probably get himself killed going after Zoom on his own.  Barry thinks we should let him stay here for now and let you break his watch if he keeps being an asshole."  Cisco shrugged.  "I'm not really okay with him sticking around or practically living here at STAR Labs, especially since he's already decided that it's totally okay for him to invade my work space without permission.

"Barry's decided to go with Harry's plan.  Use Doctor Light to lure out Zoom into a fight.  Jay's upset with Barry over it and absolutely pissed at Harry for giving Barry the idea in the first place.  He walked out when Harry called him a coward.  He's just making friends with everyone today."

"It's personal for Harry," Hartley told him.  "The way he's obsessed with Zoom... the way he hates him.  It's got nothing to do with him feeling guilty about creating Zoom; the speedster did something to him or took something from him and Harry wants revenge and its made him single minded.  I recognize that look he gets; I used to wear it myself."  Hartley winced a little as the words left his mouth, wishing there was some way he could talk about his past without reminding Cisco about some of the stupid crap he'd pulled.

Cisco peered at him in concern.  "How's your headache?"

"Not nearly as bad as it was earlier.  Would you hand me the sling?"  He'd taken it off so he wouldn't get tangled in it while he slept.

The sling was handed over and Hartley dutifully put it back on.

"So, ride home?"

"Thanks."

"Hey... about earlier.  When Harry called me out on my powers... thank you.  For standing up for me."

Hartley snorted derisively.  "Quite the reversal, given how much of an ass I was to you when we first met."

"You're not that person anymore."  Cisco offered him a hand up.  "I forgave you a while ago."

Uncertainly, Hartley took the offered hand and let Cisco pull him to his feet.

"So, we're all meeting up at Jitters tomorrow morning.  You, me, Barry, and Caitlin.  Barry wants me to pick out a name.   You know... meta alias.  Like the Flash or the Pied Piper."  It was kind of weird the way Cisco said Hartley's code name, like it wasn't something that had been picked out of anger and resentment.

Like maybe there was something good to be found there after all.

Hartley smiled.  "Just don't pick anything stupid."

* * *

When they gathered at Jitters the next morning, Cisco had not decided on a meta alias after all.  Hartley suggested that they make Cisco go collect their coffee orders while they came up with a name for him... which meant sending Cisco to face the lovely barista who'd shot him down the day before.  Caitlin had seconded the motion while Barry just grinned and asked for his usual.

But, whatever happened at the counter had Cisco coming away with a ridiculous grin on his face.

"Alright, one Chai Latte for Hartley and Flashes for the rest of us."  Cisco set the drinks down at the table, clutching a piece of paper in his hand.

"What is that?" Barry asked.

"This is the phone number of the lovely miss Kendra Saunders, the beautiful light of my life standing at the counter."  Cisco grinned impishly, dropping into his seat.

"You didn't," Caitlin said, eyes wide.

"I was apologizing for putting her on the spot yesterday and she interrupted me.  Told me she's new in Central City and wasn't sure she wanted to jump straight into dating so soon after moving here.  Only she'd changed her mind after thinking it over and would like to go on a date with me after all and of course I said yes!"  He beamed, looking absolutely thrilled and completely adorable with glee.

Hartley, however, felt a little ill and he had to hide his reaction behind his tea.  What was wrong with him, anyway?  He should be happy for his friend.  But instead he felt... well, if Hartley didn't know better he'd think he felt...

Oh.

He felt jealous.

Of course he'd figure that out because Cisco got a date with someone else.  Bad timing, thy name is Rathaway.

Smiling wryly to himself, Hartley drank his latte and listened as Barry decided on 'Vibe' as Cisco's meta alias.  And then he started giggling because there were... other connotations for the word 'vibe'.

"What?  That's... that's not..." Barry spluttered when Hartley managed to, sort of, explain the joke.  "I was just going with Cisco's terminology..."

Cisco, however, just grinned broadly even as he blushed.  "That's hilarious.  I like it."

"Of course you do," Caitlin huffed, snickering some herself.

"Even if you didn't, I'd never let you live it down," Hartley declared, ignoring the way his stomach flipped a little as he watched Cisco's smile.  He had to promise himself he'd handle this like an adult instead of reverting back to his crabby, introverted ways.  A crush was never worth ruining a good friendship over and... it had been a long time since he had a good friendship, much less three; he had no intention of screwing this up.


	2. In Which A Familiar Voice is Heard (But Not Placed)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry's first meeting with Zoom does not go as planned, Hartley decides that Cisco isn't allowed to script any cosplay role-play for the upcoming Harry Potter convention, and the truth about Harry's grudge against Zoom comes to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jay's inconsistency over whether he can use the lightning toss attack actually shows up later in the show, but I'm moving it further up in the episodes to work with the plot.

"Zoom wants Doctor Light to send him your new emblem."  Incredulity, thy name was Caitlin

"Yes.  We need it for bait," Barry said, as though this were a completely reasonable course of action.  "If we can get Doctor Light to take my emblem and throw it through the breach, then Zoom will assume she succeeded in killing me.  He'll come to this Earth to collect my body and we'll have the element of surprise in catching him."

"Right.  Fake your death, chuck the emblem through the breach, skip a couple of important steps to capture him and... profit?" Hartley gave Barry an incredulous look of his own.  "Great plan, Barry, but there are a few details that need ironing out.  Like, everything that comes after tossing the emblem through the breach."

"You know it took a lot of work to make that emblem, right?"  Cisco gave them all highly unimpressed stare.

"This is the woman who was willing to kill Linda in order to escape Zoom, but now she's willing to risk her life to help us catch him?" Caitlin exchanged a glance with Hartley, silently agreeing with each other that this was a terrible, terrible plan.

"She knows its the only way," Barry protested.

Harry took a chance and spoke up.  "I may have a few of those missing details for you, Rathaway.  Before I left Earth-2, I worked on a serum meant to dampen Zoom's speed.  I have the formula for it with me, so I just need Ramon to develop a weapon to deliver it."

"Oh, great, that could be this year's cold gun."  Caitlin's voice had gone tight and, uncharacteristically, she didn't seem to notice the way Cisco flinched at her words.  "Maybe another criminal can get it, and then we'd have Sergeant Slow."

"I would never let that happen," Cisco drawled, giving Caitlin an irritated look, before adding, "Sergeant Slow is a terrible name."

"It's better than the Turtle," Hartley muttered under is breath, earning a glare of his own from Cisco.

"Are we forgetting how much more powerful than Barry Zoom seems to be?"

"We only have Jay's word on that and his perception is likely to be a little skewed on that point."  Hartley raised an eyebrow when Caitlin gave him a betrayed stare.  "Jay has been useful to have around, especially with teaching Barry how to throw lightning and coaching him on tricks for taking down Earth-2 metas, but he hasn't exactly been consistent, or truthful, about his backstory."  When Caitlin opened her mouth to argue, Hartley quickly said, "he told you he didn't know how he got his speed powers; bright light and then speed force, no mention of a particle accelerator or dark matter.  Then Harry shows up and suddenly Jay knows all about the accelerator accident and that its definitively how he became a speedster?  I get that maybe he just didn't trust us enough to tell the truth when he first showed up, especially after losing his speed, but that's not the only lie he's told.  When he was teaching Barry to throw lightning, he claimed he'd never managed it himself.  But since then he's mentioned using lightning against Zoom and it not working.  Not as in he couldn't pull off throwing the lightning, but as in he did and Zoom shrugged it off.  So either he was lying about not being able to throw lightning or he was lying about using it against Zoom.  Either way, Jay isn't the most reliable source of information on himself, much less Zoom."

"I'd completely forgotten he'd said he'd never done it before," Barry said quietly.  "Why would he... you know what?  Never mind.  I'll ask him whenever he finally comes back and he can tell us for himself what's going on there."

"You can catch bullets, Barry.  Whose to say that Zoom won't be able to catch whatever we shoot at him?" Caitlin persevered, though she appeared unnerved by what Hartley had just told them.

"Surprise," Harry interrupted flatly.  "The element of surprise. All we would need to do is rig a projectile to fire as Zoom crosses into the breach. He can't stop what he can't see coming."

"And your backup plan in case that fails is?" Hartley glanced uncomfortably back at Joe, who was just leaning against the door frame, clearly letting them talk it out before weighing in with his own opinions.  "Look, when I targeted Barry, and STAR Labs, my backup plans had backup plans.  I was prepared for pretty much every eventuality except for a second Flash being there that day."  He mock glared at Barry.  "Time travel is cheating."

"I will remember that and disregard it when the time comes to close that loop," Barry responded cheerfully.  "So then, Piper, what do you suggest we have as a backup?"

If Harry were a dog, his ears would be pricked forward with interest at that particular exchange.  Hartley could almost see the wheels turning in the scientist's head as he tried to figure out just what the group dynamic here really was.

Truthfully, Hartley did have something of an idea, but it was one neither Cisco nor Caitlin would like.  Well, he had two ideas.  He doubted they'd like either, though for very different reasons.  "Vibrations at the right frequency can shear a person's internal organs apart, though a speedster could probably survive much longer due to the healing factor.  Other frequencies can paralyze.  Pick one, because trying to use both at once would likely fail; whatever device we came up with would have to be triggered the second Zoom came through the breach, but either option might hold him long enough to shoot him with a speed slowing serum.  If that fails... well... what did we do with the cold gun?"

"I disassembled it," Cisco answered slowly, sounding a little surly.

"I get why you all hate that thing, not least of all because of what Snart used it for."  It represented a moment of broken trust that had, to hear Cisco tell it, nearly gotten Barry killed.  "But the simple truth is, we are fighting a speedster.  We need weapons that can be used to slow down, or otherwise hinder, a speedster.  Which, unfortunately, means building things that can potentially be used to harm Barry in the wrong hands.  But if we don't make them because we're afraid of them being misused, then how the hell are we supposed to fight back against Zoom?  The moral high ground isn't going to do us any good if we don't have the means to defend ourselves."  Hartley cut himself off before he could make a chess reference.  The last thing he wanted to know was if Harry would recognize, or respond, to one.

Joe finally stood up straight and said, "Hartley's right.  If the cold gun can give us a potential advantage against Zoom, then putting it back together should be considered, at the very least.  Would Zoom have any familiarity with weaponry that can cause an instant freeze?" He asked Harry.

"Killer Frost, one of the meta's in his employ, has the ability to causing instant freezing," Harry replied, thoughtful.  "He fought her at least once before earning her loyalty, but according to media coverage her preferred attacks were creating what amount to icicles sharpened to deadly points for weapons and freezing the environment, not people.  On the occasions she has frozen her victims solid, it was reportedly by kissing them, and, well..." he shrugged, "Zoom's cowl completely covers his mouth."

"So he might not have any experience with actually being hit by an instant freeze," Hartley summed up.  "What about the paralysis by vibration?"

"I'd rather go with..." Harry cut off under Hartley's look and he sighed.  "The only meta who utilizes weaponized sound is Black Siren and she uses her screams to destroy, not paralyze.  I don't know that she ever fought Zoom, though.  Pretty sure she just signed on to his army and never looked back."

"Sounds like we've got a good plan and backup plan, then," Joe asserted.  "We slow him down with paralysis and, if that fails, the cold gun, while someone shoots him with Harry's serum... assuming you can deliver?"

"Don't underestimate me, Detective."  Harry headed off to the infirmary, presumably to get started on synthesizing his serum.

Barry's phone buzzed and the speedster checked it.  "Patty needs us back at the station," he told Joe, heading for the exit.

"I'll meet you there, all right?" Joe responded when Barry paused at the door.  The speedster nodded and then ran off.

Joe gave Cisco, Caitlin, and Hartley a pointed look, glanced over at Harry to be sure he was busy, and then jerked his head in a blatant 'follow me' gesture.

"You two aren't seriously supporting Wells now, are you?" Caitlin hissed as soon as they were all out in the hall.

"Oh, no, I don't trust Wells at all," Joe insisted.  "I just want to see what he's up to.  I figure, we give him some rope and he might just hang himself on it."

Hartley cocked his head to the side, listening to Harry with half an ear.  "He keeps making recordings into that smart watch of his.  Sounds like audio messages for someone, but... it might just be his version of a diary.  Nothing particularly incriminating, though.  After figuring out about my hearing yesterday, however, he probably assumes I'm listening to him when I'm here, so..." he probably wouldn't say anything incriminating either.

"You said you thought he wanted revenge against Zoom after Barry caught Doctor Light last night," Cisco reminded him.

He nodded.  "It's too personal for him.  He acts like he thinks he's got nothing left to lose."

"Cisco, Barry told me about this thing you can do?" Joe asked leadingly.

"Vibing," Caitlin said automatically at the same time Cisco winced and muttered, "oh god," under his breath.  Caitlin gave him a worried look while Hartley muttered imprecations under his breath in Latin about Barry's ability - or lack thereof - to keep secrets.

"Just relax," Cisco said, though whether he was saying it to them, or himself, was uncertain.

Joe didn't seem phased in the least, however, as he asked, "can you do it with Wells?"

"I can try.  Its not really something I can really control yet."

Giving them an encouraging look, Joe headed off to meet Barry and Patty at the station.  The rest of them turned to watch Harry putter about in Caitlin's infirmary for a long moment before, finally, Caitlin broke the silence.

"Hartley... why didn't you say anything about Jay sooner?"

He shrugged.  "The inconsistencies didn't even start until Harry got here.  What he went through with Zoom was traumatic enough that he may just not be thinking straight about when it comes to Zoom; he probably feels like we're not taking this threat seriously enough.  To him that might justify telling a few white lies about his fights with Zoom or maybe even exaggerating Zoom's abilities.  Until we have a chance to talk to him again, we have no way of gauging how much he's told us about Zoom is the truth and how much is hyperbole without actually interacting with the other Earth-2 speedster.  Which is why we need backup plans to cover as many contingencies as possible."  Hartley paused and then gestured to his right arm, still wrapped and sitting in the sling as per Caitlin's orders.  "Speaking of which, I'm going to need to borrow your hands to help make a frequency generator.  I've got something that should work, but it needs some modifying."

Taking another long look at Harry, Caitlin reluctantly nodded.  "Just... can you still hear him in there from your lab?"

"Yes, but not well.  If he starts another diary entry," Hartley smiled faintly when Cisco snorted in amusement, "I won't be able to tell what he's saying, just that he's talking.  We can bring what I need up to the cortex to work on it, if you'd prefer," he told her, unsurprised when she jumped on that option.

* * *

"The dampeners on the cell didn't fully suppress Doctor Light's powers," Cisco reported dully, guilt written into his every line.  "She was able to use the lights in her cell to hack the building's fiber-optics and short out the dampeners.  That's how come the systems weren't responding after she got out, too."

"I told you how dangerous she was," Harry snapped.

"Yes, your incredibly vague warning that 'she's super dangerous' should have made it obvious that something like this might happen," Hartley drawled.  "Did you know she could turn invisible?  Because that would've been useful information."

"No, I didn't know invisibility was one of her abilities," Harry conceded.

Hartley crossed his arms and said, "I realize this is going to be hard for you, but if you don't have anything constructive to add to this conversation then shut up."

"Okay, look, Doctor Light is gone, so instead of assigning blame, let's try to figure out what we're gonna do next." Joe interrupted before Wells had a chance retort.

"Do you think she's going to try and take Linda again?" Caitlin asked.

"I had Iris bring her to the house, just in case," Barry assured her.  "How are we doing with the speed-dampener?"

"I've nearly finished synthesizing it," Harry responded.

"I'm modifying the dart The Arrow used to take down Wells," Cisco added.

Petulantly, Harry grumbled, "he's not Wells. I'm Wells."

"Whatever, Harry."

"We're almost done putting together the frequency generator."  Hartley paused thoughtfully, uncertain if he should bring up the other thing... and then shrugged, "the cold gun is still in pieces wherever Cisco left it."

"So we're just short an Earth-2 meta willing to help us bait Zoom."  Harry sighed.  "Might as well at least finish these projects up anyway so we have something in reserve for whenever Zoom finally stops throwing minions at you."

"Maybe it's a good thing that Doctor Light is gone," Joe mused.  "Maybe it's the universe stopping us from doing something really stupid."

Barry shook his head and insisted that he still wanted to take the fight to Zoom.  The two of them ended up taking their argument out into the hallway and Hartley did his best to ignore what they were saying.

The best option Hartley could think of regarding Zoom was to force a fight on their terms, not his.  But the problem was... Zoom probably realized that too.

* * *

Hartley had kind of forgotten about Joe's request that Cisco vibe off of Harry.

Well... not so much forgotten, as firmly decided he didn't want to deal with the ethical implications and the murky moral questions that the request brought up.  So when Cisco and Caitlin disappeared shortly after Wells did, Hartley had put enough time and mental distance between himself and the whole idea that he didn't put two and two together until he heard Caitlin telling Cisco to go touch Harry again.

Taking off his glasses in order to massage the bridge of his nose, Hartley wondered if he should say anything to them.  He wasn't even sure he had the right to; after all, his 'powers' let him overhear private conversations all the time.  Sure, he kept the information to himself instead of spreading everyone's secrets around, but... he didn't really have room to be throwing stones over vibing someone without their permission.

It was probably a moot point, for the moment anyway.  Cisco wasn't ready to try again, despite Caitlin's urging, and Barry showed back up a few minutes later, gathering them all back in the cortex to share his latest 'brilliant' idea.  Have Linda Park impersonate Doctor Light.

They brainstormed over what they'd need to pull it off and came up with a set of gloves, loosely based off of Hartley's glove design, that shot bursts of plasma.  Less destructive than Light's actual powers, but still dangerous enough to visually pass.  Then Iris brought Linda to STAR Labs to give it a try.  After introducing Linda to the team, and providing her with Doctor Light's outfit, they all trooped down the to parking garage to set up a training course.

"How long have you been sitting on this?" Joe asked, practically giggling at the sight of Cisco's giant cardboard cutout of the cop.

Cisco twirled a second cardboard cutout - this one of the engineer himself holding a camera - so that it faced outward.  "It's important to have hobbies," he joked with laugh.  

Snickering at their antics, Hartley picked up the new gloves Cisco had made - with Hartley's input on what sort of control mechanisms worked best - and headed over to Linda, who was looking pretty much exactly how Doctor Light had when they'd caught her.  "These," Hartley told her as he held up the gloves but did not hand them over, "are weapons.  So from the second you put them on, keep your palms pointed away from yourself.  Until you're used to having them on, you might accidentally shoot yourself, of someone else, so pay attention to where your hands are at, okay?"

She nodded vigorously, and then looked nervously over at Barry... or, rather, the Flash.  "This is ridiculous."

"No, it isn't," Barry reassured her in that vibrating voice of his.  "You look just like Doctor Light."

Privately, Hartley wondered how Barry managed to fool anyone like that.  Maybe it was just because his auditory senses were altered, but it was still obviously Barry talking.  Reverse Flash had done a much better job disguising his voice and even then, he'd still sounded like Wells to Hartley.

"And with those gloves," Caitlin added, as Hartley handed them over to Linda, "you'll be able to do what Doctor Light does.  Don't worry," she added soothingly, "they're totally safe."

"Ish," Hartley said... at the same moment Harry did.

"Ish?" Linda echoed, looking between the two men with wide eyes.

"Well, come on, it's gotta be believable," Cisco interjected, "so they really do fire and explode things. And you," he gestured to Barry, "are going to have to let her hit you with those blasts when she gets the hang of it."  
  
"Who exactly came up with this terrible idea?" Joe asked, though at least he still sounded mostly amused.

Despite it being Barry's bad idea, it was Cisco who defended the plan.  "Okay, it's not a terrible idea. The suit can absorb the blasts."

"For real or ish?" Iris sounded pretty much exactly like her father at that moment.

Hartley snorted softly with amusement.  "Iris, Doctor Light may have been shooting with the equivalent power of a small star, but I can assure you these gloves pack significantly less of a punch.  Since the suit held up just fine to the real thing... we're going to have to depend on the Flash's acting skills to fake being hurt when he does get hit during the choreographed 'fight'.  That worries me more than anything else about this plan."

Barry gave him an annoyed look.  "Hartley..."

"You can't act.  Quite frankly, I'm surprised you can manage lying."

Iris snickered softly, as did Joe.  Barry pouted.

"Oh, I'm a sucky actor too," Linda admitted, sounding worried again.

"Yet you're still probably better at it than him."  Hartley gestured to where the cardboard cutouts were lined up.  "Okay, face the cardboard legion and hold up your hands, palms facing out towards whoever you want to shoot the most.  I recommend Wells."  Behind him, Harry muttered something rude.  "Keep your finger's relaxed."

"R-right."  Linda did as instructed and Hartley held out his good hand to mimic hers.  "What next?"

"The gloves aren't powered on yet," he told her, "so we're gonna run through the firing sequence once or twice before I tell you how to turn them on and off, okay?"

"Okay."  She sounded a little relieved by the news the gloves weren't active yet.

"Shooting is the easy part," he told her.  "Basically just flex your fingers, like so."  He demonstrated and she copied.

"So... jazz hands," she summed up.

"Pretty much.  Immediately relax your hands after so the gloves can gear up for another shot."  He nodded approvingly as she flexed her hands a few times.  "Okay, to turn on the firing capabilities," he gestured with his fingers in sequence - slowly - and Linda copied faithfully with both hands, though she squeaked a little at the soft humming that filled the air for a moment.  "Good; when you hear that noise it means you've primed the gloves.  To turn them off, do what you just did in reverse."  He waited for her to finish the sequence and the gloves powered back down.  "That is basically it.  Aiming is the hard part.  That and not accidentally shooting anyone."  He started to head towards the steps to join the others on the high ground and then paused to add, "we tested the gloves some already, but only for a few minutes each, meaning that you're going to be putting them through their paces with all your practice.  If they start to feel weird - too hot or anything like that - shut them down immediately and take them off, okay?"

"Right.  If the gloves get hot, take them off before I burn myself," Linda summed up.  She took a deep breath, psyching herself up, and then exhaled harshly.  "Right," she muttered to herself.  "I can do this."

"Ignore what Hartley said about shooting Wells," Barry told her.  "Just hit the ones who look like me, but avoid the others."

"Did you have to tell her to shoot me?" Harry hissed at Hartley.

Shrugging, Hartley smiled innocently.  "The cardboard cutout is in a wheelchair.  Technically, he's not you.  He's fake Wells."

"Does not make me feel any better."

Linda proceeded to hit every target except the 'Flash' cutouts.  Cisco immediately grabbed a screwdriver.  "I'm just going to give it a little adjustment," the engineer called, rushing down the steps and over to Linda, Barry, and Caitlin.

Hartley couldn't help it, he started laughing.  Then... "Linda turn those off before Cisco takes a well-deserved blast to the face!"  Hartley face-palmed.  "He's gonna get himself killed, the idiot," he added, quiet enough so only Harry and Iris could hear.

"It's almost sad that in the fight against Zoom, you're all the closest thing to professionals I could find," Harry observed morosely.

The training session continued, abysmally.  Linda wasn't confident, at all, and her aim was somewhere around 60-40 in favor of missing.  When one of the gloves started sparking, she freaked out, forgot to turn it off, and even turned it palm first toward her own face in order to look at.  Barry had to remind her - after dousing her hand with a fire-extinguisher - of Hartley's safety rules to get her to turn her palm away and put her fingers through the deactivation sequence while Cisco ran over, yet again, with his trusty screwdriver.

Eventually, though, Linda managed to 'run the course' by shooting only the Flash cutouts.  Then she immediately went to high-five Barry without turning off the damn gloves.

Hartley grabbed Cisco and jerked them both out of the way of the blast, barely managing to avoid falling on his right arm when they hit the ground.  The spot behind where the two of them had been standing was sparking.

"Thanks," Cisco told him, a little breathless from the fall.

"No problem," Hartley replied, glancing upwards to see Harry looking down at them with a distinctly unimpressed stare.  "Deactivate the gloves, Linda!" Hartley yelled.

"I'm sorry; I'm so sorry!"

* * *

"Okay, no offense to Linda, but there's no way she can pull this off," Caitlin said as they walked into the cortex.

"Well, maybe if she didn't scream every time she fired," Harry mused and Hartley snorted in amusement.

"I just wish she'd put more effort in remembering to turn the damn things off."  Hartley shied away from Caitlin when she walked over to him.  "My arm is fine, Caitlin.  Seriously.  Stop trying to poke at it."

She raised an eyebrow at him and he relented, letting her direct him to a chair while she unwrapped his wrist and checked how it was healing.  It was sore all over again by the time she was finished, but she confirmed his wrist was looking much better and he could leave off the sling tomorrow... provided he still kept it handy, just in case.

By then, Barry was off with Joe, presumably arguing over the plan in the elevator.  So Hartley followed Cisco to his lab, where the pieces of the cold gun resided, only half reassembled.

"I'm sorry," Hartley offered, after a moment of watching Cisco just stare at the pieces.

"Don't be.  You were right," Cisco replied, reluctantly picking up two pieces and reconnecting them.  "To fight a speedster, we need weapons that can hurt him.  I just... I made this, thinking it'd never get used.  But it was, by a murderer.  He used this to..."

"If he hadn't used the cold gun, he'd have used bullets and if he didn't have bullets," Hartley shrugged.  "Maybe lasers?  I dunno, Snarts' weird; I can't imagine him using sticks unless you count baseball bats and that kind of ruins the metaphor."  He smiled when that got him an amused noise from Cisco.  "You aren't responsible for the deaths he caused.  But if you're going to feel guilty anyway, then keep this in mind.  That gun might very well save Barry's life in his fight against Zoom.  That might not make up for every terrible thing Snart used that gun for, but it's a start.  A pretty good one, at that."

Cisco nodded, his hands moving a little faster and a little surer.

"It's too bad Barry is pushing so hard to have this fight tonight, though," Hartley mused.  "I bet we could come up with some way of creating a mobile cage based on the force field you made to repel the Reverse Flash.  Throw in some power dampening too..."

The other man hummed thoughtfully.  "That'll take a ridiculous amount of power... we'd probably need..." he trailed off, hands stilling for a moment.  "Nope, I shouldn't get distracted right now."  He returned to piecing the gun back together.

"I'll stop distracting you, then," Hartley told him with a laugh, heading back out into the hallway and down the hall a little ways to his own lab, where Harry was absently tinkering with... something.

"Making a flute, Rathaway?  Seems a little low tech for you."

Hartley shrugged.  "If I can figure out what I'm doing wrong, I should be able to manipulate people's brain waves.  Nothing major, just the equivalent of low level hypnosis.  The sort of thing that helps with pain management, insomnia, hypno-therapy, and possibly advertising on tv, though I'm not really evil enough for that last one," he quipped, earning a surprised smile from the Earth-2 scientist.  "What brings you to my lab?  Finally bored with annoying Cisco?"

"Something like that."  Harry fiddled with the wires coming off the flute a moment longer, before putting it back where he'd found it.  "You're awfully protective of this team, for someone who apparently started off wanting to hurt them."

Hartley raised an eyebrow, wondering if Harry had a point or if he was just trying to make friendly small talk... which did not seem like him at all.

Harry cracked first.  "Why are you here?"

"You have no idea how tempted I am to give you a completely off the wall philosophical answer to that."  Hartley smirked for a moment, then sobered, regarding Harry for a long moment.  The problem with Harry was twofold.  They didn't trust him and he didn't trust them.  If this was ever going to work, that was going to have to change.

"When I first worked at STAR Labs, I spent two years making Cisco's life hell.  Even Caitlin, who tries so hard to be at least civil to people she doesn't like, rarely had anything nice to say to me.  I was Wells' pet, basically.  But I didn't see it that way.  I thought... well, after my parents disowned me - and even before that they sucked at being parents - I needed someone to look up to.  The way Wells treated me... it was like having a parent who actually cared.  Maybe he even did, in his own twisted way; it just wasn't enough to stop him from ruining my life when I found out too much about his plans with the accelerator.  Sort of like caring wasn't enough to stop him from murdering Cisco in the timeline that got erased.

"Anyway, once I realized the Flash was working with STAR Labs, I knew I was never going to be able to get justice.  Not for me, not for anyone else who was suffering after the accelerator exploded, not for those eleven people who died..." Hartley felt the familiar chill of guilt creeping up the back of his neck - if he'd tried harder to stop the accelerator then maybe... no, he had to stop that - and let out a shaky breath before continuing.  "I decided vengeance was easier.  And how better to take vengeance than by wrecking his reputation and humiliating his new pet.  If I'd been successful, even with his healing factor, Barry would've had to spend a few days quality time in the STAR Labs infirmary and the truth about the accelerator's flaws would've been all the news outlets would be talking about... all while I skipped town for Opal City or Dakota City or... pretty much anywhere not here.  But then a second Barry Allen showed up and shot my plans to hell.  I wound up in the pipeline... which was apparently exactly where I needed to be when the time wraith showed up.

"Caitlin and Cisco hid in the cell with me because they thought it would keep them safe from the dementor - that's what it looked like, okay?" he said quickly when it looked like Harry would interrupt, "and they figured they could handle any trouble I might try to make.  Except it broke the glass on the door.  When I demanded my gloves back to try and stop the thing, Cisco handed them over.  I ended up shorting the gloves out, but I forced the time wraith out of our plane of reality too."  Hartley remembered how confused he'd been by Barry's friendly, almost familiar behavior towards him.  It had made so much more sense when Cisco had spilled the time travel that had been going on behind the scenes.  "Afterwards, Wells made it pretty clear that if I told anyone that I'd seen him standing after my attack on his house, then my life was forfeit.  But I took a chance and I told Cisco anyway... and he listened.  He didn't have any reason to trust me over Wells - every reason not to, actually... but he still listened and then so did everyone else.  That's why I'm here."

"So that's why you're so loyal to them, Cisco in particular."  Harry looked pensive, clearly flipping something around in his head.

Hartley nodded.  It was a little thing, really, to have been listened to... but it had meant the world to him at the time.  So, yeah, the team had Hartley's loyalty and Cisco in particular.  But the way Harry said that... and Harry kept poking at Cisco and digging for information on Cisco... "your turn.  What's your problem with Cisco?  Or... maybe it's with his doppelganger from your Earth?"

Harry looked startled.  Then, crossing his arms (and making Hartley a little jealous; it was amazing how little attention a person could pay to their natural gesturing habits until they had a sprained wrist in a sling and instinctively wanted to cross their arms), Harry said, "fine.  On my Earth, Cisco Ramon... or Francisco Ramon, rather, is rather notorious these days.  He's one of Zoom's top lieutenants; a meta called Reverb.  I've never met him, but before I left there was an attack..." Harry's voice cut off, almost pained sounding for a moment and then he tried again.  "There was an attack at Central City College.  Zoom took a student while some of his favored meta's wreaked havoc on the buildings.  It was said that, among others, Reverb was sighted there during the attack, helping to level buildings with Black Siren.  That student Zoom took... was my daughter, Jesse."

There was a sharp breath and sort of clattering noise from the hallway.  Cisco stood in the door, a deer in the headlights expression on his face.  "I... I just... finished putting the cold gun back together and... I'll just be... in the garage testing it."  He grabbed the fallen cold gun from the floor and then spun around to leave.

"Cisco!" Hartley didn't even hesitate, hurrying after the other man.  What did Cisco fear about his powers more than anything, after all?  That the power would corrupt him.  Even what little Harry had said about Reverb had to sound like Cisco's fears made manifest.  "Cisco, wait!"

The engineer froze, glancing back at Hartley and then looking away, a pained expression on his face.  Hartley wished he knew what to say, wished he hadn't been so invested in trying to get Harry to open up that he hadn't tuned out what Cisco was doing.

"Ramon," Harry spoke up from behind Hartley.  "I have a favor to ask of you."

"Y-yeah?"  Cisco crossed his arms defensively over his chest (which was every bit as frustrating to Hartley as when Harry did it earlier).  "What is it?"

"I want you to try and vibe Jesse.  I need to know if she's..." Harry swallowed and rephrased what he'd been about to say.  "I need to know what Zoom has done with her.  You're the only one who can find that out."

The three of them stood there in a sort of stunned silence.  Then, hesitantly, Cisco nodded.

"I can try."  Nervously, Cisco held out his hand to Harry and, equally reluctant, the older scientist clasped it with his own.  The effect was instantaneous, Cisco's eyes glazing over and he seemed to be barely breathing.  Then it was over and he pulled his hand away from Harry, listing to the side for a moment.

Grabbing Cisco's arm, Hartley steadied him.  "Are you alright?"

"Yeah... yeah, fine."  He didn't look fine, but Hartley wasn't going to push it.  "I saw her... your daughter," he told Harry.  "Zoom has her locked up somewhere on Earth-2.  I didn't get a good look at the place, though.  Zoom was... questioning her about you."

"She's alive?"

Cisco nodded affirmatively, but didn't elaborate any.  For once, Harry seemed too tentative to press for anything more, slumping in relief against the door frame of Hartley's lab for a long moment before disappearing back inside.

"Don't mess with the flute," Hartley called, getting an affirmative back.  "Want some company testing the cold gun?"

Cisco shrugged, so Hartley followed along anyway.  They walked in silence together back to the parking garage where the cardboard cutouts were still set up.

After checking over the cold gun one last time, Cisco pointed it at a cutout of himself and froze it.

"Cisco..."

"Please don't."  Cisco swallowed thickly and turned away from the frozen cutout.  "So it works just fine.  I even have to admit, Snart's modifications make it work better than the original design."

Hartley tried again.  "Cisco..."

"Seriously, Hartley, don't."  Cisco's voice cracked.  "Zoom is torturing Harry's daughter.  Nothing... nothing permanent.  I think he's just trying to scare her.  But still... and some version of me helped put her there."

Uncertainly, Hartley stepped forward, took the cold gun away from Cisco to toss it aside, and put a hand on the other man's shoulders, silently offering a hug.  Cisco took it unhesitatingly, sniffling softly at the memory of whatever he'd seen happening to Jesse Wells.  Hartley hugged Cisco tightly and thanked his lucky stars that he was the one with super hearing and not Cisco, because otherwise the engineer would know just how fast Hartley's heart was beating.  He closed his eyes for a moment and wished...

Well, he wished for a lot of things, but he didn't bother thinking he'd actually get any of them.

* * *

"Cisco," Hartley says, keeping his voice as flat and quiet as possible, "we are going to have a long discussion about that upcoming _Harry Potter_ convention because you are not getting me to join in any character role-playing if this is your best dialogue."

"I second that," Caitlin added over the comms.

"Oh, come on guys," Cisco wheedled.  "It wasn't that bad."

"It would have been better if your actors had any skill," Harry commented, "but I've seen B-movies with better dialogue."

"I will grant that it's better than _Twilight_ ," Hartley offered.

"Way to set the bar low, Hartley," Cisco grumbled.

"What's _Twilight_?" Harry asked.

"Guys," Barry hissed urgently from where he lay 'dead' up ahead, "shut up.  I'm trying not to corpse."

"You okay down there Barr?" Joe asked.  "That position doesn't look comfortable."

"It's not," Barry confirmed.  "I'm fine."

They all went quiet and then waited... and waited...

"Hey, stop fidgeting."

"Sorry.  It's been an hour and I landed in a ridiculous position; my foot fell asleep."

"He's probably waiting to see if you're really dead," Cisco muttered, looking half asleep himself.  "Any minute now, he's going to strike."

Barry stood up, shaking his head and stretching his arms.  "No.  He's not coming."

"Sorry, I probably screwed up somehow," Linda lamented.

"No, Linda, you did great," Iris tried to reassure her.

Hartley stumbled to his feet as well.  "Help me pack up the frequency generator?" he asked Cisco, wincing a little at the sound of Harry loudly kicking something in a fit of temper.

"Yeah, sure."

* * *

Maybe an hour and half later, Cisco was putting a new emblem on Barry's suit and teasing the speedster, when Iris made the call.

"Zoom has Linda."

Hartley ran for his lab, grabbing his gloves, putting his comm back on over his ear, and ditching his sling.  There might be hell to pay with Caitlin, and his arm, later, but... Zoom was here at STAR Labs on their roof with a hostage.  Barry needed at least the option of backup.

Once the gloves were on, he took off again, heading straight for the front lobby.  He heard Cisco shout his name, but Hartley ignored him, not stopping until he was at the glass doors, yanking them open and dragging Linda inside.

"We can't just leave him alone out there," she protested.

"Right now, we'd just get in the way.  Let Barry handle this," Hartley cautioned her.  They waited, quiet, as Barry zipped around the building, faster and faster until... he was throwing lightning at Zoom.

It was a pretty amazing sight to behold, even though it all happened so fast.  But then... Zoom caught the lightning and threw it back.

How the fuck was that even possible?

"Did you guys see that?"  There was an edge of panic in Barry's voice that hadn't been there moments earlier.

"See him catch a bolt of lightning with his demonic claws?"  Cisco sounded equally frightened, but holding it together.  "Yeah, saw that."

Caitlin wasn't doing as well, though.  "Jay was right.  He can't do this alone."

"He's not alone," came from Harry, of all people.

"Run, Barry," Caitlin advised, but Barry was having none of it.

"No.  I'm gonna see if Wells' speed-dampening serum works."

"Need a distraction?"  Hartley offered.  "I'm behind you in the lobby; I've got my gloves."  He powered them on and then rolled through the frequencies until he reached the one he'd programmed into the generator they'd intended to use at the breach earlier.

"Thanks, Hartley, but I've got this."

For a few minutes, It seemed like Barry really did.  The idea of using terminal velocity to even out the differences in their speed was a good one.

Too bad it didn't work.

Hartley ran outside just in time to hear the sickening snap of Barry's back breaking and the other man's groans of pain.  Raising his hands, he splayed his fingers to hit Zoom with paralysis.  For a moment, it seemed to work and, from somewhere off to the left, Harry fired his rifle.

Zoom was vibrating, though, and seconds before the dart would've hit him, Zoom was free, grabbing the dart and jamming it into Barry's chest.  The red-clad speedster screamed and Hartley had to bite back against the instinct to cover his ears.

Not with the gloves powered on.

Instead, Hartley gritted his teeth against the pain in his head and his hand and cycled up to another frequency.  One that would, theoretically, shred a speedster from the inside out.

The dark speedster looked up from Barry and stood, advancing on Hartley at normal speed.  Hartley thanked his lucky stars for that as he splayed his fingers again, knocking the speedster several yards away.  He didn't stay down, though, speeding back to crouch over Barry.  Hartley couldn't hit Zoom without hitting the Flash too.

"Pied Piper," the speedster growled, the distorted voice echoing in Hartley's ears, "you'll regret that," the monster promised.  Then he was gone, and so was Barry.

"Get inside."

Hartley was breathing hard, staring at where the two speedsters had been.  Zoom's voice... there was something about it...

"Dammit, Rathaway, listen to me!"  Harry shook Hartley's shoulder.  "Get inside and out of sight, or Zoom will probably decide to kill you when he gets back.  He's not done making his point to us yet."

"He'll kill you too," Hartley pointed out when he took a step back and Harry didn't move to follow.  Shutting down the gloves with a wince, he added, "if he kills you, then what happens to your daughter?"

Harry swore, but he followed Hartley inside all the same.  They grabbed Linda and dragged her out of sight, despite her protestations.  Harry ran on, back down to the cortex, but Hartley stayed with Linda in the hallway.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," she panted.  "He just... he just broke Barry's back, didn't he?

"I think so," Hartley agreed.

"What are those gloves of yours?" she asked, trying to get herself under control.  As a reporter, asking questions probably grounded her.

"They're a similar design to the light gloves you were using," he told her.  "Weaponized sonic technology.  Like the frequency generator we were going to use on Zoom."

"Oh."

Hartley opened his mouth to say something else about the gloves, hoping she'd continue to calm down, when something blue flashed past them into the cortex.  

"Linda, down the hall, two doors on the left.  That's my lab.  Lock yourself in there and don't unlock the door until someone comes to get you."

"But..."

"Harrison Wells, you thought you could defeat me with this?"  The gravely, broken voice demanded.

"No arguing," Hartley hissed, giving her a shove in the right direction.

Wide-eyed, Linda nodded and then ran.

"I made a mistake," Harry replied, not quite as evenly as he'd probably hoped for.

Hartley turned his gloves back on and, carefully, edged into the cortex.  He crept slowly along the wall, trying to find a place where he could attack Zoom without hurting Barry, or anyone else.

"Yes," Zoom was growling, something almost painfully familiar about that voice.  "A costly one."  He jerked Barry hard, shoving clawed fingers against Barry's stomach to draw blood, and the red-clad speedster gasped in pain.  "Goodbye, Flash.  You, too, weren't fast enough."  But then Zoom seemed to almost... freeze.

There was a high pitched whine in the air, but it wasn't coming from Hartley's gloves.

Following the sound to its source, Hartley stared in shock at Cisco, who'd picked up the second rifle and shot Zoom with the dart.  The whining faded and Zoom, shrieking in rage, pulled the dart free from his neck... and then collapsed, dropping Barry to the floor beside him.  Stumbling back to his feet, Zoom dashed away.  Still speedster fast, but... noticeably slower.

Hartley slumped against the cortex door frame and powered down his gloves again.  He watched for a long moment as the others crowded around Barry, trying to be careful in assessing the bloodied speedster's injuries and move him to the infirmary.

There wasn't anything he could do there.  So Hartley turned and walked down to his lab.  He knocked on the door.  "Linda, you can open it up now.  Zoom left.  He won't be coming back for a while."

The door opened and the reporter beckoned him inside his own lab.  "What... what's happened to Barry?"

"Caitlin has him.  We'll know more once she's had a chance to examine him.  But I need your help with something first."

"What's that?"

"My right wrist is so stiff and in pain right now, I can't get my gloves off on my own."  He held out his left arm and asked, "give me a hand?"

A little hysterically, Linda giggled at the bad joke and then said, "they're... turned off, right?"

"Yes.  They're powered down."

"So... you're the Pied Piper, huh?"  Linda carefully tugged the glove off of Hartley's left hand.

Once free, he used his left hand to start pulling the other one off.  "Yeah, that's me... oh, fuck."  Feeling a little nauseated from the pain, Hartley felt himself go pale and had to brace himself against the nearest lab table, glove still half on his right hand.  He dropped into his chair and tried to get his breathing back under control.

"Want me to...?" she gestured to his right hand and he nodded.

She pulled the glove the rest of the way off.  The world went a little hazy around the edges for a moment and Hartley took a few seconds to regret his useless attack on Zoom so much... the kickback on his gloves was probably the worst thing he could've subjected his wrist to, and he'd done it twice.  But if he'd just stood there in the cortex and not even tried... no.  He couldn't have done that.  And the paralysis field had nearly worked long enough for Harry to dart the Earth-2 speedster.  If he could've coordinated better with Harry, or had some way of preventing Zoom from matching the frequency with his own vibrations so quickly...

"Um, here," Linda offered him the sling he'd left on the table.

Gratefully, Hartley pulled it back on, ruefully remarking, "so much for being able to ditch this thing tomorrow.  There's some aspirin in that drawer over there, would you grab some for me?"

"Two?" she asked, opening the indicated drawer and popping open the bottle she found there.

"Yeah," he said gratefully, taking the caplets she passed over and dry-swallowing them.  He hated doing that - it always left a tacky feeling in the back of his throat that took forever to go away - but there was no way he was leaving that chair until the pain was at least slightly lessened, even in search of water.  "Is there any family you can call?  Or friends?  Someone outside of Central City - preferably out of state - you could go stay with for a while?"

Linda's mouth opened and then shut abruptly.  Then, quietly, "it's really that bad?  I mean... do you really think he'll come after me again?"

"Yes."

"I guess that was a stupid question."  Linda sighed, looked around, and grabbed a second chair to collapse on.  "What happens to Barry?  I mean... his back is broken.  Where will he go?"

"His back will heal.  Unlike your average human, or even meta, speedsters have pretty amazing healing factors.  Our Earth's Wells really was paralyzed when the accelerator exploded," Hartley reminded her.  They'd given her the abbreviated 'Wells was really a time traveling speedster distantly descended from Eddie who no longer exists because Eddie's death erased all his descendants from history' story when she'd first seen Wells in the cortex hours earlier.  "He healed from that, so Barry will recover too.  Physically, anyway."

"Mentally is another question entirely," Linda filled in.

"Yeah."

"I have some family in Coast City.  Mom's been itching for me to come visit for months, so she'll be pleased to have me spend some quality time there."  Linda smiled, all forced bravery, and Hartley felt bad for her.  All this because some alternate version of her was a meta.  Gesturing to his computer, he told her his password so she could log in and start booking a flight.

The sooner Linda was out of town, the safer she'd be.

* * *

After directing the exhausted reporter to go nap on his cot in the server room, Hartley finally returned to the cortex.

He nearly walked back out on the sight that greeted him.

Joe was in Harry's face about what happened to Barry and both Cisco and Caitlin were trying, desperately, to deescalate the situation before Joe gave in to his impulse to hit the scientist.

"So, what, Zoom sent you here like the others?  You kill The Flash and you get your daughter back?"

Someone, probably Cisco, must've brought up Harry's daughter to Joe.  Though it could've been Caitlin, hoping for more information and deescalation all at once.  Hartley had, after all, mentioned Harry's daughter while they'd been on comms.

"The only way I get my daughter back is if Zoom is captured.  Do you understand?"  Harry's devastation was palpable.  "You love Barry.  I love my daughter.  None of these children are safe as long as Zoom is here.  I tried to capture him on my Earth, but I failed.  I thought I could bring him down here, with Barry's help.  I was wrong."

"Zoom's voice was familiar," Hartley said quietly, walking over to the group and successfully redirecting everyone attention away from Harry.  "I can't place it; whatever the hell he's doing to his voice isn't just vibrating it like Barry or not-Wells did.  Pretty sure if he weren't a speedster, Zoom would be doing some permanent damage to his vocal cords.  And... he called me Pied Piper.  I don't think he came over from Earth-2 just for tonight.  I think... he's been here for a while.  Stalking us, doing research, figuring out who we are and which of his metas to send against Barry next.  If that's true... then he may have picked Doctor Light on purpose.  After all, once he knew what Barry looked like under the mask and heard enough people call him by name to do a basic Facebook search, how hard would it really be for him to figure out that Linda's his ex?"

"This is why I hate social media," Caitlin could be heard muttering to herself.

"If his voice is familiar," Cisco spoke up, "do you think you could figure out whose voice it is?"

"Maybe... I don't suppose any of what he said was recorded off the comms or..."

"It was on the news."  Caitlin reminded them.

Cisco nodded, turning to head towards the computers, "I can download a copy of the footage..."

Hartley stopped him with a hand to his shoulder.  "Tomorrow.  Its late and we're all exhausted.  Go home."  As if on cue, Cisco hid a yawn behind his hand.

"Need a ride?" Cisco offered.

"I need Caitlin to look over my wrist again," Hartley told him wryly.  "I think I'll just take over the cot in the server room once Iris arrives to take Linda away.  I appreciate the offer, though."

Nodding, Cisco looked back at Barry, who lay too quiet and still in his neck brace.  "Maybe I'll just grab a couch in the break room, then."

"Let me see," Caitlin demanded, walking over to Hartley and, consequently, forcing Joe and Harry to put a little more space between them as she passed them by.  "Yeah, this actually looks worse now than it did yesterday," she told him.  "Cisco, would you go grab a couple of ice packs and bring them here?"

Cisco nodded and hurried off for the break room's freezer.

"Taken anything yet?"

"Aspirin," he told her holding out his wrist for inspection.  Hartley gasped and nearly collapsed, darkness tunneling in on his vision, as Caitlin delicately probed his wrist.  Someone caught his shoulders, though, and steadied him.  To his surprise, when his vision cleared, it was Harry.

"I think it's still just sprained, not broken, but I want to run it through the scanner first and then again in the morning when the swelling goes down, to be sure," Caitlin told him, peering at him in concern.  "I know you don't usually like taking pain meds, but in this case I really think you should.  It'll help you sleep tonight and I think we're all going to be having trouble in that department."

"Sure," he croaked, feeling a little like he didn't actually need the meds to sleep.  Then again... he glanced at Barry and shuddered.  What he could really do with was something to keep the nightmares at bay.

Hartley had a feeling that a monstrous, growling, unnervingly familiar voice calling him the Pied Piper was going to be haunting his dreams tonight.


	3. In Which Hartley Encounters the (Unwelcome) Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hartley interrogates Harry about all things related to Zoom, trying to get a better idea of who Zoom is and how he operates only for the information he gathers to indicate there's been yet another thing Jay may have lied to the team about. Also, say hi to Ray Palmer.

Hartley woke up in the middle of the night to a loud, crashing noise somewhere in the cortex.

"Shhh... Cisco, what are you doing?"

"I just... I needed to check on him."

"Nightmares?"

"... yeah."

"Barry's still doing fine.  Still asleep too.  I suppose one of the upsides to him being dosed with the suppression serum is that the medicine I'm giving him actually works for a change.  I'll probably keep him under until sometime tomorrow afternoon.  Joe's going to tell people that Barry's got the stomach flu that's been going around."

"How long... how long do you think it'll take for him to recover?"

"I can't be sure.  It depends on how long the serum lingers in his system and... well, there are other factors.  Maybe a week?  Maybe longer?  I just... don't know."

Closing his eyes for what seemed like just a few moments, the voices drifted away in the dark.  When he opened his eyes again, the lights were on.  He sat up, confused for a minute as to where he was before remembering he'd gone to sleep on a cot that had been set up just outside the infirmary door; Caitlin had wanted Hartley in sight, just in case he had a bad reaction the pain medicine.  Since becoming a meta, he'd learned the hard way that a lot of medicine meant to alleviate migraines augmented his already over-sensitive hearing, thus doing the exact opposite of what migraine meds were supposed to do.  For that reason, Hartley appreciated her caution.  But it seemed he'd done just fine - which was very good to know for the next time he ended up injured - and now he just had to push through the feeling of having his head stuffed with cotton that the pain medication had left behind as it wore off.

Experimentally, Hartley moved his right arm and winced as his wrist protested with an aching, stiff feeling.  But it wasn't nearly as it had been the night before and the swelling had gone back down.

"Oh, good, you're awake."

Hartley blinked over at the Caitlin-shaped blur that had just walked in to the cortex.  "I don't remember where I put my glasses last night," he told her, stifling a yawn with his left hand.

"They're on my desk.  I'll bring them over to you," she promised, hurrying into the infirmary to grab them and then passing the glasses over as soon as she stepped back out, having already flicked the stems open for him.

Hartley slid them onto his face and Caitlin came into focus.  "What time is it?"

"Ten... thirty-eight," Caitlin replied, pausing a moment to check her watch.  "How do you feel?"

"My arm's sore and my brain feels fuzzy, but that last one is starting to pass already."  Being able to focus his vision did wonders for helping his mental focus narrow back down to normal.

"Good.  I still want to run your hand through the scanner, just to be sure I didn't miss anything last night because of the swelling."  Caitlin scrubbed a hand over her face tiredly and then she sat down on the cot beside him.  "What you did last night... that was really brave, Hartley."

"Too bad it didn't do any good.  Couldn't keep Zoom pinned down long enough for Harry to shoot him or keep him from parading Barry around town like some kind of sick trophy either."  Hartley looked up at Barry, asleep in the infirmary.  The speedster was going to be stuck there for days recovering and, once upon a time, Hartley had wanted to be the one to do exactly this sort of thing to him.  Guilt and shame curled in his gut and he looked away.  "How's he doing?"

"He's stable and already healing faster than normal... but slower than his normal.  We'll know more when he wakes up."

Nodding, Hartley gave Caitlin a long look.  "Have you slept any?"

"I napped here and there," she protested... and then yawned.  "Never for long," she admitted when he raised an eyebrow.

"Then once you're sure my wrist is really still just sprained, you're using this cot to sleep.  No arguing," he told her, bumping her shoulder lightly with his own.  "You've been working overtime to take care of Barry.  But, as you said, he's stable and will be sleeping until this afternoon.  So now you need to take care of yourself."

Caitlin yawned again and let her eyes close for a moment.  Then she snapped her eyes open and straightened her posture.  "Alright.  I'll sleep.  But first..."

Letting Caitlin lead the way, Hartley followed her to the scanner and let her do her thing.  Then, when the scanner told them exactly what they already knew - sprained, not broken - Hartley sent Caitlin to the cot, made her lay down, and snickered at her a little when, maybe a minute or so later, she was out like a light.

Wandering out of the cortex, Hartley headed for the break room.  There were some power bars in there he could munch on for breakfast - the non-speedster type of power bars - and either coffee or tea, depending on the state of the coffee maker.  (It had been puttering towards death despite Cisco rebuilding it twice.  Hartley was pretty sure that there would be no coming back a third time.)

Once armed with nutritious almond-bar goodness and freshly made tea (the coffee was cold and Hartley didn't want to deal with making a fresh pot one-handed), he headed to his lab.  There was, apparently, a fifty-fifty chance that Harry would be there and Hartley had questions for him.  However, his lab was blessedly empty when he walked in.  He stared longingly at his half-finished flute, wanting to hook it back up to his computer and work on tuning the sub-harmonic frequencies it was supposed to emit.

It would be a nice, safe, relaxing way to spend his day.

Instead, Hartley ate his power bar, drank his tea, and then headed back out of the lab in favor of checking in on Cisco's lab.

Still no Harry, but Hartley did find Cisco there.

"Morning, Cisco," Hartley greeted, knocking lightly on the door frame at the same time.

The engineer jumped and then turned around, offering Hartley a wan smile.  "Morning.  I, uh... downloaded a copy of last night's broadcast.  The one from the Picture News."  Cisco gestured to a USB stick sitting on his lab table, as though hesitant to even touch the thing.  "It's hard to watch.  So... if you need, like... time or..."

Hartley picked up the stick and slid it into his pants pocket for later.  "I'll get to it eventually.  But, yeah... I think I need a little time before seeing any of last night again."  He couldn't afford to put it off for long, though.  Recordings sounded very different to him than the real thing, so he needed his memory of Zoom's voice to still be fresh enough that he didn't wind up missing something important.  "How are you doing?"

"Everything feels a little surreal.  I also might be freaking out a little because I shot Zoom and... I thought I felt... something."  Cisco swallowed nervously and crossed his arms.

"I was planning to try either knocking him away from Barry or maybe paralyzing him again so that maybe someone would be able to shoot him with the second gun," Hartley said quietly.

"Then that was you?  Just... something from your gloves I was feeling?"  Cisco sounded so hopeful.

"No."  Hartley shook his head, wincing internally as Cisco's eyes seemed to dim a little.  "I wasn't in position to do anything that wouldn't have hurt Barry too.  But Zoom froze anyway.  And I could hear something - outside of normal human hearing range, but not mine - and... I'm pretty sure it was coming from you."

"Me?" Cisco squeaked.

"Yeah.  Do you think maybe... there's more to your powers than visions?"  Hartley wished he could put this conversation off, but if Cisco had the ability to stop a speedster in their tracks, even if just for a few seconds...

"I don't... I don't know.  Maybe?  I mean... if I have the same abilities as my counterpart from Earth-2, then... well... the name Reverb doesn't sound like it's inspired by psychic visions."  Cisco shrugged, visibly avoiding eye-contact.  "If that was me, I don't know what I did or how to replicate it or... anything."

"You'll figure it out," Hartley told him confidently.

Cisco just sighed, however.  "You've got more faith in me than I do right now."

Hartley wanted to tell Cisco that it shouldn't be that surprising.  After all, Cisco helped him remember how to have faith in others... but the words sounded sappy and stupid even in the confines of his own thoughts; moreover, it was certainly not the sort of thing that he would ever say out loud to a guy he has an unrequited crush on.  The last thing he wanted was to make his feelings obvious and their friendship awkward.

"I'm going to go see what Harry's up to.  I don't suppose you know where he's gone?"  

Shrugging, Cisco poked half heartedly at the remains of the ruined Boot from the Flash Day event.  "I dunno.  He disappeared an hour or so ago; if he's not in your lab or the cortex then I honestly have no idea.  What do you need him for?"  Cisco sounded disgruntled.

"I want to ask him questions about how he tried to stop Zoom on his Earth.  Maybe come up with a timeline of events.  We're going up against an opponent that we know practically nothing about and I don't like it.  Half the battle is psychological and Zoom clearly knows more about us than we do him; that gives him an edge when it comes to screwing with our heads and after last night... none of us are thinking clearly."  He paused a beat, figuring that even though he hadn't seen Joe or Iris in the cortex when he woke up didn't mean he shouldn't at least ask.  "Joe's already left, right?"

"Yeah.  He'll be back for lunch - he's bringing food for everyone, even Harry - and Iris left early to take Linda to get packed and drop her off at the airport.  She had to head into work after that too, but she'll be here as soon as she can get away.  I guess things are... hectic there."

"I bet all the other news organizations want to interview them," Hartley mused.

"Reporters interviewing reporters," Cisco agreed with a fake sounding laugh.  "Inception style journalism?"

"Ugh, the only way that movie could've been even more boring."

"Hey!  No dissing _Inception_.  That was a great movie."

Hartley just rolled his eyes and left the lab, tossing a dry "if you say so" over his shoulder as he did, smiling a little once he was out of sight.

Whatever might be going on with Cisco's powers and however shaken he might be over what happened to Barry, Cisco was going to be okay.  Now to get his answers from Harry.

* * *

Harry, as it turned out, had found Wells' - Eobard's - personal lab space.  The room was mostly full of whiteboards, brought down to the level that would be most useful to someone in a wheelchair.  The room hadn't been used in months, the last of Eobard Thawne's scribbles covering every surface that was safe to use markers on.

It was kind of creepy to see Harry standing in the midst of it all, tilting the boards upward so that he could look down on the equations.

"I don't think any of us have actually been in here since the singularity," Hartley mused, stepping inside.  "Too many bad memories."

"This was... his lab space?" Harry asked, deliberately skating around naming his not-really-counterpart.

"Yeah."

"He was brilliant, I'll give him that," Harry said, stepping away from the boards.  "In my STAR Labs, this is where my office was located."

"How different is this STAR Labs to yours?" Hartley asked, curious despite himself.

"A little smaller, a few rooms in different places or with different uses, but... they're pretty similar over all."

Glancing around the room, Hartley asked, "I don't suppose he left behind anything useful in any of these equations?"

"Most of them are unfinished and have to do with generating power using the accelerator... probably what he used to figure out how to create the singularity in the first place.  That... that is how he was planning on returning to the future, I take it?"

"Yeah.  He must've been trying to figure out how to do it without involving Barry."  Pulling his phone out of his pocket - having retrieved it from his lab earlier - Hartley took pictures of two of the boards and then rolled them to the room's exit.  "Help me move these two to my lab?" he asked absently.  Bemused, Harry agreed and Hartley set them up near his computer, then hurried back to Wells' lab to grab some markers and cleaning supplies.  He returned to his lab to find Harry adjusting one of the boards back up to normal height.  "Thanks," he said absently, setting in on cleaning off the first of the two boards while Harry adjusted the second one and then cleaned it himself.

Once the boards were as pristine looking as the two men could manage, Hartley grabbed a green marker and tested it on a corner.  Still worked, showing up bright and clear.  He wiped the color away and then said, "I've got some questions for you, about Zoom."

Harry tensed up.

"All of the most important information about him - the clues that could tell us who he is and how he thinks - are on your Earth.  So whatever you can remember about him makes you our best source of information right now."  Hartley uncapped the marker again.  "What was the date of the accelerator failure on your Earth?"

Dutifully, Harry rattled out a date that did not, quite, match up to the Earth-1 dating system.  Hartley wrote it awkwardly at the top of the board, marking it with a little 'E2' and the noted next to it 'metas created'.

"Okay, so... aside from the explosion was there anything else noteworthy that happened that night?  Something you might've noticed in the news, like an influx of patients at the local hospital or... electrical issues, black outs or brown outs, lightning storms...?"

"No... it was a clear night, so no storms and... I don't remember there being any problems with the city's electrical grid that night."  Harry frowned thoughtfully and then said, slowly, "actually, I remember there was a fire at a nearby psychiatric hospital that night.  It was the only thing of note in the news the morning after and... I was relieved that my mishap the night before hadn't done any damage after all.  It never occurred to me that the two might be related, but I guess it stuck with me anyway."

Hartley added the psychiatric hospital's fire to the board, not sure if the two were related either, but more information at this point was better than less.

"When did Zoom first start making a name for himself?"  The questions went on from there.  How Zoom got his name, how long it took before Zoom had more-or-less taken over Central City, how many metas worked for him, when Jay first showed up, how long it took before Zoom vs Flash became a regular 'event' in Central City, how long it took for the police to return to the precinct once Jay made it safer for them to do their jobs... how often the Flash won or lost against Zoom, Jay dropping in on the news conference and presumably 'alerting' Zoom to Harry's involvement in creating the city's metas, the Flash's disappearance the night of the singularity, Jesse's kidnapping, the arrival of Earth-2 metas on Earth-1... and Harry's failed attempt to capture Zoom in a force field cage shortly before creating his own version of the speed cannon to journey to Earth-1.

By the time Hartley was done asking questions and adding everything to the boards, the timeline he was creating of Zoom's - and, by proxy, Jay's - movements on the two Earths had spilled over on to the second board and covered both sides of each marker board.  At one point, Harry had even grabbed a blue marker and joined in the writing, re-writing parts of the board where Hartley's handwriting with his left hand had proven to be less than legible.

Flipping the boards around to view the earliest parts of the timeline, Hartley hummed to himself and summed up what they'd collected.  "Okay, so... Zoom showed up about two weeks after the accelerator accident and immediately started targeting the cops.  He was a solo act at the time and ended up clearing out the police station in a matter of weeks.  Then he started fighting other metas and recruiting them to go murder and steal in his name... recruiting more metas to his banner and killing the ones who wouldn't join.  Six months later, Jay shows up and starts fighting Zoom's metas, but not Zoom himself.  That doesn't happen until... the one year anniversary of the accelerator explosion... but then neither of them are seen again for a little over a month.  During that time, the police took back their station and started restaffing it.  Then Zoom and Jay show up separately, around the same time, with Zoom regrouping his metas and Jay teams up with the police.  The two of them fight a few more times over the next several months, always short, highly visible fights and Jay tends to lose more than he wins... until the night of the singularity when, it sounds like, Zoom got tired of toying with Jay.  He stole Jay's speed and was about to kill him when the singularity connected our two Earths and brought Jay here."

Hartley's eyes landed on the words 'started developing velocity' and then flipped around the boards again to see 'velocity proven failure'.

"I'm going to grab another board."  Hartley darted out before Harry could say anything.  Once again, Hartley took pictures first, to preserve anything that might be useful from Wells' last work, and then dragged the board back.  After it was adjusted back up, and clean, Hartley stuck the word Velocity at the top.

"Okay, so your first idea to take out Zoom was to make Jay faster than him."  Hartley started to write that down, only to have Harry take away his marker and write it himself.

"Just sit down and let me write," the older man grumbled.  "The idea was to artificially enhance an existing speedster's speed.  But, obviously, I wasn't going to be field testing unproven chemicals on the only speedster I had available, so I tried it on lab mice first.  It took a couple of iterations before there were any visible effects," Harry was writing down the most important notes on the velocity drug on the board as he spoke.  "When I made velocity-4, a few of the mice were able to escape from their cages because they were vibrating so fast.  Scared the hell out of... out of Jesse, when she visited that day only to see a mouse go speeding past her feet."

Laughing, Hartley tried to imagine the scene and wished he could have seen the little speedster rodents for himself.  He, personally, preferred rats over mice - he'd actually had a few rats for pets over the years - but mice were pretty adorable too.

"Unfortunately, that was when I started noticing some really nasty side effects.  While the serum was in effect, the velocity-mice had boosted healing, much like Jay and Barry's.  But when the velocity wore off, it crashed the mouse's immune system.  They developed illnesses more easily and were experiencing a degenerative cellular condition that was both untreatable and fatal.  Jay and I tried countering the effects, but velocity-5 and velocity-6 merely caused the cellular degeneration to work more slowly.  The only thing that helped was giving the mice more velocity; their artificial speedster healing would fix the existing damage... but that was only delaying the inevitable because once the velocity wore off they were dying again.  When the mice started to spontaneously combust under the effects of velocity-7... I shuttered the project.  Jay and I disagreed about whether it was worth the risk to continue, but it was my lab and ultimately my decision.  I didn't see him again after that until he crashed the STAR Labs press conference a few weeks before the singularity occurred."

"Is velocity how you got the idea for the speed inhibitor?"

"Yes.  Because of my time spent studying velocity and observing Jay when he used his speed, I had a pretty good idea of how the speed force interacted with a person's body and, thus, how to temporarily inhibit that interaction.  I didn't dare try replicating the degenerative effects of velocity, though.  I was worried about what might happen if, somehow... well, if something happened to him like what happened to Barry last night."  Harry shrugged and flipped over the board, writing at the top 'Force Field Cage', having already anticipated where Hartley was going with this.

"We've actually got something similar from our time fighting the Reverse Flash.  It's not mobile, though."

"Mind if I take a look?" Harry asked.

Hartley shrugged in response.  "Let's finish going over any important notes on yours first and then we'll grab Cisco before heading down to take a look.  It was his design," Hartley elaborated when Harry gave him a look.  "He's not Reverb."

"And I'm not Eobard Thawne."

"No, you're not," Hartley agreed easily.  "Do any of the rest of us have evil counterparts on your Earth?" morbid curiosity finally winning out.

"I'm not sure if I should say..."

"You might as well.  If they show up here, we should probably be prepared to be fighting familiar faces.  I mean, I doubt they're going to wear evil mustaches to make telling the differences between us easier."

Harry snorted in amusement and then went silent for a minute.  Finally, haltingly, he answered.  "Snow's counterpart is one of the metas I mentioned yesterday.  Killer Frost.  She pals around with her lover, Deathstorm, a guy named Ronnie Raymond."

"Ronnie..." Hartley repeated, feeling a little ill.  Yeah, he was definitely going to have to figure out a delicate way of bringing that one up with Caitlin.  Preferably when she was well rested and less worried about Barry.

"I take it you know his counterpart?"

"I knew him.  He died.  So, no evil version of the Pied Piper on your Earth?"

"I'd never even heard of you, or Barry Allen, before coming to this Earth," Harry told him.  "Detective West's counterpart is a Jazz pianist with a certain amount of fame within the city, but I don't know anything about his daughter, either."

"Huh... if I do have a doppelganger on your Earth and he's living a quiet, unremarkable life... I wonder if that makes me the evil counterpart in this Mirror Universe setup?"

Harry snorted in amusement and actually smiled.  "Evil isn't a word I'd use to describe you, Rathaway.  Annoying and more than a little vindictive... but not evil," the approving smile on his face, however, as he glanced between Hartley and the information they'd just gathered took away from any bite that might've been in his words.

"Thanks," Hartley tossed back dryly, feeling oddly touched and unsure as to why Harry's opinion would mean anything to him at all.  Maybe it was just him missing the mentor/mentee relationship he'd once had with not-Wells; maybe it was just that Harry kind of reminded Hartley of himself a few months back; or maybe it was just that Harry himself was starting to grow on Hartley.

* * *

Hartley made sure Cisco was the one who got to show off the force field cage, though Harry clearly would've preferred to avoid the engineer altogether.  But the two played nicely together under Hartley's watchful eye (it was like a hilariously twisted fun-house mirror of the past, swapping Hartley for Wells) and, though Cisco clearly couldn't see it, Hartley could tell just how much Cisco's feat of engineering impressed Harry.

Turned out that Cisco's trap was similar in design to Harry's, but it had a few bugs that Harry's didn't... and it had quite a few more improvements over Harry's design, which was an admission that Hartley nearly had to drag out of the older scientist.  There was no kicking or screaming on anyone's parts, but it was a near thing.

After lunch, Hartley liberated the last of the boards from the office that formerly belonged to Wells and had Harry write down the names and aliases and powers of every known meta in Zoom's army.  A lot of them, Harry only knew the aliases and not their real names.  Even more of them, Harry only had guesses about their powers.  He conceded that Jay probably knew more but, since Jay was still off pouting and not talking to any of them, Hartley had to make due for now.

Hartley paused only to be there with Cisco and Caitlin when Barry woke, Harry hovering unobtrusively out in the hallway just to the left of the cortex's perpetually open doorway.  Hartley could see the change on Barry's face when he realized he was paralyzed, even as Cisco and Caitlin tried to reassure him that it really would all be okay and he'd heal... and he was pretty sure the absolutely terrified way Barry said "I can't feel my legs" would end up giving him as many nightmares as the sound of the speedster's back snapping or Zoom's voice calling Hartley by his alias.

They talked for a while, Hartley and Cisco mostly there for moral support while Caitlin explained to Barry her estimates on how long it would take for him to heal enough to walk.  It only took Hartley cutting off Cisco and Caitlin about twice each before they stop mentioning things like 'running' and 'back in the suit'.  They meant well, but running around being the Flash was what put Barry in that infirmary in the first place.  The last thing Barry needed to feel was that his friends wanted to push him back into the very life that hurt him.  The question of the Flash - of whether Barry was still up to being the Flash - could wait until he was in a better head space.

It was almost a relief to be able to go back to working on the marker boards with Harry, for all that Hartley felt horribly guilty about leaving Barry stuck in the infirmary.

* * *

Black Siren - Laurel Lance  
                  - Powers - Sonic screams

Deathstorm - Ronnie Raymond  
                   - Professor Martin Stein?  
                   - Powers - Nuclear Pyrokinesis and Flight

Killer Frost - Caitlin Snow  
                  - Powers - Cryokinesis

Reverb - Francisco Ramon  
            - Powers - Visions of past/present/potential futures  
            - Engineer and weapons maker

Rupture - Dante Ramon  
             - Powers (None)  
             - Utilizes powered scythe capable of targeted energy blasts build by Reverb

There were a lot of other names on the list.  Zoom had more metas working for him than he even needed.  But those five were the ones that stuck out the most.

Hartley had no idea how he was going to show this to the others without completely freaking them out.

* * *

After getting a ride home from Cisco, Hartley went through the chores he'd left behind the previous morning.  A couple of dishes in the sink get rinsed and stuck in the dishwasher and then he wound up staring at the contents of his fridge for several long minutes before concluding that he needed to do something with the kale before it went bad.  There's tilapia in his freezer and a potato that looks like it's just this side of not sprouting yet and... Hartley has an idea of what's for dinner now, at least.

He heated up the oven and preps a foil packet for the tilapia, adding spices and soy sauce, and then set that aside on shallow pan, in case the foil leaked.  Then he diced up the potato and got that ready to roast in the oven too.  He's to the point of chopping up the kale when the oven finally pings that it's ready and in goes the fish and the potatoes.  He sets the time for the potatoes - he can add more time for the fish once the timer goes off again - and gets back to the kale, which he ended up heating over the stove with a little water.  

Making dinner takes somewhere around half an hour for him to complete and when he ran out of things to do while waiting on the fish, Hartley finished off the last of the cheap, sweet red wine in his fridge.  There was just enough for a glass and, mercifully, it hasn't turned to vinegar yet.  Though it didn't taste quite the same as when he'd first opened it, so it was probably a near thing.

While dinner was delicious and that was certainly a perk of being able to cook, Hartley had chosen cooking over ordering take out because its something he can use to tune out the world.  Not zone out, though.  Zoning out while doing something involving sharp knives and burning stoves was a good way to wind up with chopped fingers and burned arms.  But there's no room for thinking about anything but what part of the food prep came next and that was the whole appeal.

It was only afterwards, when he started through his nightly routine, that Hartley realized the USB stick that Cisco had given him that morning was still in his pocket.

Swallowing heavily, Hartley moved the stick to the little shelf where he kept his keys, and tried to forget it was there.  But he kept thinking about it as he showered and brushed his teeth and slipped into his pajama bottoms and collapsed into bed.

He was still thinking about it an hour later when he finally gave up and found the Benedryl.

* * *

_There was a sickening crunch right before Zoom dropped Barry to the ground, the CSI moaning in pain.  That was when the speedster noticed Hartley and started approaching at a normal pace.  Hartley lifted his hands and tried to release a sonic attack but..._

_His gloves weren't working.  Or maybe his gloves weren't even on his hands.  Hartley couldn't tell which it was and then it didn't matter because Zoom was standing there, laughing at him, the sound dark and disconcerting.  "I like your style, Piper, but you'll regret that all the same."  And then suddenly Cisco was there, eyes wide and frightened, Zooms hands on his neck and..._

_When did Cisco get there?  Did Zoom grab him, did he... oh god._

_"Don't.  Please don't..."_

_Snap._

Hartley bolted out of bed for the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet in time.

He had to brush his teeth again to get the taste out of his mouth, rinsing the last of it away with mouthwash afterwards.  His hands were shaking as he leaned against the counter, putting more pressure on his right hand than he ought but he was grateful for the dull, aching pain it caused.  Anything to distract him from that nightmare.

Instead of going back to bed, Hartley pulled on an over-sized t-shirt, and his Gryffindor House snuggie (he'd have preferred Ravenclaw, but Gryffindor was all he could find), and padded out to his couch.  He turned on Netflix and picked out _Haven_  from his queue, letting Audrey Parker, Nathan Wournos, and Duke Crocker distract him from his absurd life with their equally absurd shenanigans.  The meta-human like people who live in Haven, Maine in the show call themselves the Troubled and that sums up exactly how Hartley feels at the moment.

* * *

In the morning, Hartley wakes in his darkened living room, the alarm clock in his bedroom buzzing loudly in his ears.  The tv is dark and the PS3 powered off; Hartley had to assume they'd timed out on their own because he doesn't remember voluntarily halting his _Haven_ marathon.

Cisco calls to let him know he's parked outside, ready to pick him up for work, not long after Hartley finishes getting dressed.  The physicist's hands only freeze for the barest of instants over the USB stick before he grabs it and shoves it into his pocket.  Then he snags his keys and is out the door.

* * *

When Hartley walked into his lab, he sees something he didn't quite realize the day before.  He managed to block the way to his computer with all the marker boards.

It wasn't consciously intentional, but Hartley has no doubt it was his subconscious at work.  The USB stick feels like its burning a hole in Hartley's pocket as he's suddenly all too aware of it and its contents.

The annoying thing is, Hartley can't even pick up a spare laptop and leave this mess behind to deal with later.  The software he needs to strip the audio and use to identify Zoom's voice are on his computer situated at the back of his lab, with... six marker boards between him and it and all the boards are covered in information that he really, really doesn't want Cisco and Caitlin to just stumble over by accident.

Why, oh why, does he do this to himself?

Unable to figure out a way to slide past the boards without smudging the information on them, and in no mood to be transcribing them, Hartley started the annoying task of moving the boards back to the former lab of not-Wells... which had a real-Wells inside.

The two of them stared at each other for a surprised moment, and then... "working on anything important?" Hartley asked.

"No."

"Then do me a favor.  Go grab one of the spare laptops and start putting all this info we came up with yesterday into a word document.  For readability."

"Why aren't you going to be doing it?" Harry grumbled, though he walked over to roll the board away from Hartley and back into the room.

"Well, first," he waved his sprained arm (Caitlin was probably going to flick him between the eyes for ditching the sling without permission, but he really missed being able to gesture properly), "the only time my typing skills have been worse was before I was taught to stop hen-pecking in elementary.  Second... I really should be using the... the footage Cisco tracked down to figure out why Zoom's voice sounded so familiar."

Harry paled and gave him a sympathetic look.  "I'll take being a temporary secretary over that job any day," he admitted quietly.  "I'll help you move the rest of the boards."

It took all Hartley's willpower not to turn down the help.  The faster the boards were moved, the faster he sat down and listened to the recording and... he really needed to stop procrastinating.

Once all the boards are moved, Hartley sets Harry up with a laptop and temporary user id for basic STAR Labs server access and then runs out of excuses to avoid his own computer.  So it was with great reluctance that Hartley returned to his lab, settled into his chair, and then plugged the USB of doom into his TARDIS themed hub.  Not even the TARDIS's materialization noise from the show or the blinking light of the hub powering up made him feel any better about what he was about to do.  But it had been worth a try.

Firing up the analysis software, Hartley used it to load the audio from the .mp4 saved on the USB drive and presses play.

" _Look at your hero."_

_Shuffling noises... an iphone camera clicks... creaking sounds as Zoom shows off Barry..._

_"This man is no god."_

_More phones taking pictures, both iphone and android this time..._

_"He is nothing."_

_The sound of a speedster's lightning trails... papers being dislodged... Iris's voice, gasping in horror somewhere nearby..._

Hartley stops the recording and touches his cheeks, unsurprised to find tears there to match the tightness in his chest.  After wiping at his face, Hartley backs up the recording and creates a copy of just the first words.

" _Look at your hero."_

He'll use that copy to manipulate until he finally strips away everything that's keeping him from recognizing that voice.  Because it's still familiar and Hartley is nothing if not determined.

Hartley has to listen to it a few times before he can start identifying and stripping out the background noise.  Then a few more passes before all the ambient noise and shuffling papers and freaked out journalists and phone sounds are gone and its just Zoom's gravelly, speed altered voice.

" _Look at your hero."_

The tone is slightly off due to it being a recording, but its close enough that Hartley decides not to try adjusting for it and instead starts working on adjusting for the vibration in the man's voice.  Ten minutes and one accidental squirrel voice later, Hartley decides to take a different approach.  He goes searching through the backlogs of STAR Labs security cameras and finds a good clip of Barry's voice and then another of Barry's 'Flash' voice, each saying the exact same word.  Then he does the same thing to those two clips as he did to the Zoom clip.  He filters out everything until just Barry's voice is left.

He uses each clip of Barry saying Linda's name as starting points, trying to morph Barry's normal voice into his Flash voice and vice versa.

By lunch time, Hartley's made Barry sound like a squirrel a ridiculous number of times, only some of which were accidents.  It's a lot less creepy to hear squirrel-Barry and squirrel-Flash than squirrel-Zoom; more importantly, Hartley thinks he's getting the hang of how to mimic speedster voice-vibrations as well as 'smooth' them back out to normal voices.

Needing to get as far away from his lab as possible, Hartley headed over to the cortex to get Caitlin to okay his arm for driving.  His car is feeling neglected and Hartley really wants to go off on his own for a little while.  But there's no sign of Caitlin.  Just Barry, angled up ever so slightly in his bed, reading something on a tablet.

"Interesting book?" Hartley asked, walking over to join the injured speedster.

"Interesting isn't a bad word for it, though weird would be more accurate.  It's called _The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear_  and the guy who wrote it is also a cartoon artist, apparently, because every so often there are these absolutely bizarre illustrations."  Barry tapped the screen to bookmark his place and scrolled back a few pages before handing the tablet over.  "See for yourself."

The tablet is displaying a picture of a ridiculous looking creature with a face dominated by a single eye that reminds Hartley of Mike from _Monster's Inc_.  Grinning, Hartley handed the tablet back.  "Certainly looks bizarre."

"Cisco recommended it to me."  Barry blanked the tablet and set it aside.  "He... he told me you were trying to identify Zoom's voice."

"Yeah.  I..."  Hartley sighed and pulled over Caitlin's chair in order to sit down next to him.  "His voice sounded familiar, but I can't place it.  With your voice and Dr... Eobard Thawne's voice, it was obvious who was talking even with the weird vibrating thing you do, but... I can't place Zoom's voice."

"So... think you've met his Earth-1 counterpart, then?"  Barry fidgeted with the edges of his blanket.

"I can't think of any other explanation," Hartley agreed.  "It would've had to have been in the last two years, since the accelerator explosion.  Whatever I'm recognizing... I'm not sure I'd have been able to catch the difference between Zoom's voice and a voice I heard with... normal hearing."  He paused and then huffed softly.  "Less than normal, actually.  I was born half deaf and my parents had my hearing corrected when I was six, but... I always had a little trouble hearing even after that."

"Do you think that's why the accelerator affected you the way it did?"  Barry looked like he was trying not to be fascinated by what Hartley was telling him, but... they were still pretty much clueless about how, and why, the Dark Matter had affected so many people in such radically different ways.

"Yeah, I do."  Hartley shrugged, "it's like... in a twisted way the Dark Matter was trying to give me something I'd always wanted.  To be able to hear better.  It was... just one of many reasons why my parents made me feel defective and, even after being disowned, I'd internalized so much of their ableist and queerphobic crap," not to mention the classist and racist and sexist... well, just every prejudice the casual rich could possess and pass on, "that I'm going to be unpacking all of it for a very long time."

They went quiet for a moment, then Barry told him, "I ran pretty much everywhere as a kid.  Ran from bullies pretty much all the time..."

"Probably after distracting them from bullying someone else," Hartley interrupted dryly.

Barry laughed.  "Yeah.  That... that was a fairly common thing.  Iris just punched them.  She said it was easier, took less effort, and she wasn't too bothered about being grounded.  I was also always running to dodge Joe in order to visit my dad..." Barry paused and then added, "dad didn't want me to see him in prison.  I think, maybe, he was afraid that if I saw him there enough times I'd start to think maybe he'd really done it.  I mean, I know he had a lot of other really good reasons to not want me to see him there, but... that's how it felt."

"Kind of makes me wonder about some of the other metas and their powers.  I mean, there are some where the connection is obvious and others... well, I certainly wasn't one to bring up my auditory impairments."

Nodding a little sheepishly, Barry admitted, "I did wonder why you got the abilities you did.  There's always some sort of connection to a person's past or what was happening to them at the moment the Dark Matter reached them, but... I could not figure yours out at all and it seemed kind of rude to ask."

"I'm not an open book about my past, but... with you, Cisco, and Caitlin it's easier to not feel like I have to keep these things to myself or risk having them used against me."

"Helping each other deal with the past is definitely a perk of having good friends," Barry agreed with a grin.  Then, his expression turning a bit rueful, "I basically had no friends outside of Joe and Iris until just days before the accelerator exploded.  That was when I met Oliver, Felicity, and Dig.  Then, nine month coma later, I had Cisco and Caitlin too."  There's a moment of silence where he probably thinks about saying something about Wells and then just... skips over him entirely.  "Eddie ended up being an amazing friend too... even though I wanted so badly to dislike him for having the courage to ask Iris out when I'd completely failed at that for years.  He was so good for her, I just... couldn't help liking him after all."

"I barely knew the guy and even I liked him.  Definitely would've hit on him if I hadn't already known Iris was dating him," Hartley mused with a grin.  "Dude was hot."

Barry snickered, "yeah, he was.  I was kind of..." he blushed.  "I kind of had this stupid wish that Eddie and Iris and I..." he trailed off, cheeks beet red.

"Oh, don't tell me _you_ had a threesome fantasy about them," Hartley cracked up.  "That's just precious."

"If I didn't need these pillows to sit up right now, I would hit you with one of them," Barry grumbled, but he was smiling.

"Seriously, though," Hartley turned a tad more thoughtful, "it's too bad you never had a chance to even ask if they'd even be remotely interested in trying out a poly relationship with you.  I mean... Eddie definitely checked out your ass a few times."

"No.  No way."

"I'm gay; I notice when guys are ogling other guys."  Hartley grinned again as Barry's eyes went as wide as saucers.  When Barry started to respond, however, Hartley hushed him and frowned, looking over his shoulder.  There was an echoing clanky noise in the hallway and it sounded a little like... "I think you have a visitor."

"Huh?"

"Sounds like the ATOM suit," Hartley told him, standing up.  The ATOM suit had a very distinctive sort of clanging.  "Be right back."

Hartley darted out of the infirmary and through the cortex out into the hall.  Just in time too, as there was Harry and Ray staring at each other in shock.

Ray, however, recovered first, raising a hand and clearly preparing to fire.  "Thawne!  I thought you were dead!"

"Thawne is dead," Hartley said quickly, placing himself between Ray and Harry.  "This is Harrison Wells - the real Harrison Wells - from a parallel reality.  We're calling him Harry."

"A... parallel reality?" Ray echoed, backing down from his attack stance.  "You mean, you've proven the multiverse theory?  That's so awesome."  He was grinning now and lowering his hand.  "Well, as long as he's not an evil psychopath like the last guy who called himself Dr. Wells, then... sorry?  I usually make a better first impression than this.  Hi, I'm Ray Palmer."  He held out his hand to shake Harry's.

Harry glared at Hartley for a moment as he got out of the older scientist's way, clearly not enthused about having to make nice with the guy who'd been about to shoot him.  But that was just tough and Harry was going to have to deal with it... while Hartley tried not to look utterly confused at how readily Ray had backed down and one-eighty-ed on just Hartley's say so.

He'd always known Palmer was an over-grown puppy, but... to not question what Hartley said at all?  Ray really needed to borrow some of Oliver's cynicism.  Though, for now at least, Ray's trusting nature was working out for the best.

So Hartley watched in amusement as Harry reluctantly shook Ray's hand - far shorter than was truly polite, not that Ray seemed to realize - while Ray babbled out question after question about parallel realities and what life on Harry's Earth was like and did they have sandwiches there and how had Harry come to be on their Earth and...

Hartley took pity on Harry.  "Ray, you're here to see Barry, right?"

"Yeah.  We all saw the news and I was going to come yesterday, but Felicity thought it might be too soon and I might overwhelm him.  Which... I'm only one person; one person can't be overwhelming, right?"

"Depends on the person's personality," Hartley replied glibly.  "He's in the infirmary.  Come on."  Hartley started leading the way back to Barry and asked, "anyone else from Star City planning on visiting?"

"Oliver and Felicity will be here on Monday," Ray replied easily.  "Oh, hey, good news.  I'm officially CEO of Palmer Tech again.  The whole officially being declared not-dead-after-all got finalized last week and Felicity immediately had me reinstated.  She's back in charge of the tech division.  She also said something about STAR Labs having a business proposal for me?"

Hartley snorted softly in amusement.  Ray was a puppy alright.  At least, until he started talking business, at which point the adorable puppy Ray turned into the shark, Mr. Palmer.  "Yes, but it can wait."

Ray beamed, looking excited, and then bounced ahead, leaving his helmet on a desk in the cortex before hurrying up to Barry in the infirmary.

"Do we have sandwiches there?" Harry muttered incredulously behind Hartley.

"It's actually a _Star Trek_ reference," Hartley responded absently.

"That doesn't sound like _Star Trek_ to me," Harry groused.

Shrugging off Harry's reaction, Hartley slipped his phone out of his back pocket and joint texted Cisco and Caitlin, letting them know about their visitor.  "The Original Series had a movie reboot a few years ago.  It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great either.  The sequel was worse, though.  Too much _Wrath of Khan_ nostalgia and even more Kirk as a caricature than the first movie."

"Let me guess," Harry said dryly, "too many people focus on the space babes to remember that Kirk was never focused on the space babes?"

"Pretty much it in a nutshell," Hartley replied.  "Same problem on your Earth?"

"Four seasons of the show and people still can't... what?"

"Four seasons."  Hartley was staring at him intently.  "There were four seasons of the original series on your Earth?"

"Were there more here?"

"Less.  Only three."  Hartley paused and then asked, "I don't suppose you have them on dvds or some sort of digital media that could be brought here for viewing?  Oh don't give me that look."  Hartley grinned at Harry's scowl, "it's not like I'm going to put them out for torrenting on the Pirate Bay."

"Ray's here?" Cisco asked, walking into the cortex.

"Yes, but more importantly, Harry says there were four seasons of _Star Trek: The Original Series_ on Earth-2."

"What?!"

"Oh god dammit," Harry muttered under his breath.

"Four seasons?!"

"Why couldn't I keep my mouth shut?"

"I... there are not words..."

"We didn't get any reboot movies, though," Harry pointed out, to Hartley's amusement.

"After what happened with _Into Darkness_ , that might be a blessing," Cisco responded derisively.  "I mean, out of all the Trek villains they could've picked, they go for Khan?  I mean, I know he gets name recognition, but that was just a stupid move all around.  No re-imagining of Kahn was ever going to top the original; all pandering to the nostalgia factor did was make the end result disappointing.  Besides, they cast Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan."

" _Sherlock_ guy?" Harry questioned.

"Yup, same show over here," Hartley agreed.

"But he's... not Indian.  I mean, neither was Ricardo Montalbán, but..." Harry trailed off with a shrug.

"At least he wasn't white," Cisco filled in.  "Also, Montalbán was amazing.  He made Khan feel like a classical genius and a true foil to Kirk's character.  Cumberbatch's Khan came off as more of a brute-force type.  Still brilliant, but less... suave and charming."

"If Khan isn't disarmingly charming to the point where even Kirk wants to have dinner with him to pick his brain, then he definitely isn't Khan," Harry agreed and then the two of them grinned at each other in agreement for a minute, before realizing that they were actually getting along.  They each looked away, pointedly.

Moment over, apparently.

"I kept hoping they'd go with Gary Mitchell instead of Khan after Cumberbatch was announced," Hartley offered, wondering if he could restart that moment of camaraderie.  "Or maybe Garth of Izar."

"Garth of Izar would've been an amazing villain," Cisco agreed.

"Maybe I should watch your Earth's version of _Star Trek_ ," Harry mused thoughtfully.  "I don't recognize that one."

"Oh, I know, what spin off shows did your _Star Trek_ have?"  Cisco was hooked again.

Hartley left the two chatting surprisingly amiably about _Star Trek_ and headed back towards the infirmary to sit on the cot that's still set up beside the entryway.  He listened to Ray regale Barry with the tale of his rescue from Damian Darhk and waved Caitlin over to join him when she walked in.  Caitlin smiled at the sight of Ray and then settled next to Hartley, checking over his hand and agreeing, reluctantly, that he could drive himself home that evening.  Just not... now.  If he really wanted to get out of the building for a while, though, she'd be happy to go with him.

* * *

"So, I was actually on the phone with Felicity when you texted to let me know Ray arrived," Caitlin told Hartley, once they'd settled at a table with some of Jitter's coffee and tea (coffee for Caitlin, tea for Hartley) and some sandwiches they'd grabbed from a place down the street.  "Mostly she was just warning us that Ray was on his way since he couldn't bring himself to wait for Monday.  They'd only just noticed he went missing.  Before that I was talking with Professor Stein.  I convinced him not to interrupt his training with Jax, though."

"How are they doing?" Hartley asked, unwrapping his sandwich.

"They're still working on getting the basics down, but Professor Stein thinks they might be ready to try out transmutation soon.  He and Ronnie... never had a chance to work that one out."

"I'm glad they're doing okay."

"Me too."

Caitlin fiddled with her sandwich, not really eating, and Hartley flicked the wrapper she'd peeled off it with his right hand.  "Worrying about Barry?"  When she looked startled, he said, "you're passing your sandwich between your hands, but it never quite reaches your face."

"Ah... I... I was wondering where Jay was and if he was still here on our Earth or if he'd gone back to Earth-2 or..." a faintly guilty look crossed her face and she put her sandwich down.  "I like him, a lot.  But it feels... disrespectful to Ronnie.  I tell myself that Ronnie would want me to move on -"

"He would," Hartley agreed absently.

"- I'm not dishonoring his memory just for flirting a little with an intelligent, witty, handsome man who makes me smile... but I feel like..."

"You don't have to move on all at once, Caitlin."  Hartley paused and then said, "you went through all this - grieving over Ronnie dying - once already.  That probably just makes it all the more confusing, especially since he wasn't back long and... it had to feel kind of surreal whenever he was here.  You barely had a chance to process he was still alive before he was having to leave."

"I thought I had dreamed it all," Caitlin admitted.  "I... I called Cisco the morning after Ronnie left to train with Professor Stein, just to confirm it was all real.  I never thanked you, for all you did.  Helping us find Ronnie and then helping us find a way to safely separate him from Professor Stein.  It meant a lot to me and I should have said something."

"I wasn't being that altruistic," Hartley said, trying to sound casual and failing.  "I used the information I had on Ronnie as a bargaining chip."

"Yes, you did.  And then you refused to give up on trying to save Ronnie, and Stein, even when Wells was going to.  You didn't have to help us."

"Yes I did."  Hartley suddenly didn't feel hungry, putting his sandwich down.  "I worked on the accelerator project longer than anyone except Wells.  He started me on it when I was still just an intern and I was involved in some aspect of it all throughout my employment there.  Years, Caitlin, and I didn't see what was going on until it was too late."

"What happened with the accelerator wasn't your fault, Hartley."

"I know that but... I still feel responsible anyway."  Hartley tapped his fingers along the table.  "Do you know how many times I noticed something weird about the numbers and asked about it?  Wells would tell me not to worry about it.  So every time I just let it go."

"You trusted him; we all did."  She reached over and took his left hand for a moment.

Hartley shrugged and returned to his sandwich.  "So, what do you intend to do about Jay?  He was definitely flirting back in the van.  Before it flipped over, anyway."

"I... really don't know.  I'm definitely not ready to move on yet and... he's from another universe."

"Well, if he's smart then he'll stick around in this universe and wait until you're ready," Hartley told her, feeling a little relieved as Caitlin finally began to eat as well.

"That would be nice," she admitted.

They ate in a companionable silence for a while and Hartley thought back on the marker boards full of Zoom related data he'd gathered from Harry.  "When we get back to STAR, there's something I need to talk to you and Cisco about.  Barry too, but... I don't think he's ready to be dealing with anything to do with Zoom yet.  I'll have to see if I can get Ray to keep Barry occupied a while longer."

"Is... this about Zoom's voice?"

Hartley shook his head.  "I spent most of yesterday getting Harry to answer pretty much every question I could think of about Zoom and his metas and what Harry had contributed to trying to stop him on Earth-2, aside from that privacy invading app of his."  He rolled his eyes.  "How Harry could consider that app to be anything other than a PR disaster just waiting to happen, I honestly have no idea."

"What do you mean?" Caitlin asked.

"The only thing that app will do is continue to foster prejudice; people can use it to justify violence against others based solely on the fact that they're already a victim.  I mean... it picked up on me being a meta and I don't have what could be considered 'active' powers.  So what happens when it picks up on someone who has what looks like just a basic genetic mutation, like Jax or Hewitt.  Without the FIRESTORM matrix in Professor Stein, neither of them had any abilities of their own; would they register as metas?"  Hartley thought for a moment and then decided to go with an analogy.  "It's like building a literal gay-dar.  Imagine what people like my parents would do with something like that; not even me being gay changed their opinions on accepting queer identities and they're not alone in that sort of intolerance.  And kids being kicked out for being metas is already a thing that's happening here on our Earth, even without that app.  The youth shelter I volunteer at has somewhere around half a dozen teens who are definitely metas, for all that they won't say they are.  The glowing in the dark and color changing hair and other things they can do are kind of obvious giveaways.  None of its dangerous to them or others, but it still contributed to why they're living on the streets instead of with families.

"But imagine what happens when someone without powers gets attacked for being a meta after the app identifies them as such.  It's not a stretch for that person to get a good lawyer a sue the hell out of Harry's version of STAR Labs... assuming civil law on Earth-2 is even remotely similar to our own.  Then he winds up with a class action suit against him and the press will have a field day, doing a 180 on their current coverage of the app.  Instead of touting how it'll alert you to the presence of meta criminals, they'll be hand wringing over the privacy invasions and 'false positives', which they can define however they want."

"Oh, that does sound like a disaster waiting to happen," Caitlin agreed.  "Also sounds like you've given it a lot of thought."

"Not really."  Hartley shrugged.  "One of the reasons Barry asked me to stick around STAR was to get business running again before the money leftover from Wells runs out.  This sort of thing just... occurs to me."  He would've said more, except two people had just walked into CC Jitters and one of them had a very familiar voice.  One Hartley hadn't heard in several years, but certainly wouldn't be forgetting any time soon.  Groaning softly, Hartley sank down a little in his seat.

"What's wrong?" Caitlin asked, straightening up and looking around worriedly.

"It's nothing, really," Hartley muttered, trying to curb any further reactions to the man's presence.  "Just one of the guys who just came in is an ex of mine.  Kind of the ex from hell, really.  Hopefully he's getting his coffee to go because the last thing I want is to be stuck in the same building as him."

Caitlin nodded, an understanding look on her face.  "Do you want to leave?"

He shook his head negatively.  "I'd rather not draw his attention."

They finished their sandwiches in what felt like tense silence, Hartley trying not to listen while Earl flirted awkward with the barista on duty - thankfully not Kendra - in front of the man with him who seemed to grow increasingly uncomfortable as Earl ignored him.  It was a familiar sight.  Hartley couldn't count the number of times Earl had flirted with someone else in front of him, specifically to make Hartley uncomfortable and jealous.  Whenever Hartley would bring it up, Earl would tell him he'd misinterpreted and of course Earl hadn't been flirting with that other person.   _"Why do you have to be so insecure, Hartley?  Don't you trust me?  Being so jealous is really unattractive."_   But god forbid Hartley even speak to an attractive man in front of Earl, because... _"What the hell did you think you were doing, flirting with him like that?"  "Earl, I wasn't..." *smack* "Don't you lie to me, Hartley."_

"Are you sure you're okay?" Caitlin asked, glancing back anxiously at Earl.

"Yeah."  Not really.

"Earl, stop it.  Please, you're embarrassing her."

"Oh, don't be like that, James, she's flattered.  It's just a bit of fun."

"It's not funny, it's harassing..."

Earl gave James a bit of a shove.  "Don't tell me what to do."

Hartley's hands curled into fists under the table.

"I-I'm sorry, Earl."

How could he run out to fight Zoom and still feel afraid of Earl, despite all the years that had passed since he'd last seen the man?  Hartley's mind made no sense to even himself sometimes.

"Is there a problem here?" Patty Spivot asked, from further back in the line.

"It's fine..." James responded nervously while Earl snarled at her to mind her own damn business.

"Your orders are ready," the barista said, nervously holding out what looked like a Flash and a tea.

Earl scowled snatched his, heading over to a table.  "You just couldn't keep your stupid mouth shut," he hissed as soon as his boyfriend joined him.  He sounded almost unrecognizable with anger.

Hartley frowned a little deeper and straightened up.  Unrecognizable... with anger...  Was that why Hartley couldn't recognize Zoom's voice beneath the vibrations?

"What is it?" Caitlin asked.

"Just... I think maybe I'm having trouble recognizing Zoom's voice because he was so angry."  Hartley shrugged, feeling awkward.  "He's not leaving," he said, nodding at Earl's table.  "Let's just go."

"Alright..." she stood up, still looking at him with concern.

There was a loud smack as Hartley stood up and he flinched at the sound.  He glanced over, but Patty was already hauling Earl off James.

"Do you have paper and pen in your purse?"  Hartley asked.  Caitlin nodded, confused, and but handed over a little notepad and pen.  With difficulty, Hartley used his right hand to scrawl a phone number and the name and location of a shelter for abuse victims not too far from the Freespace youth shelter Hartley volunteered at on the weekends.  His hand hurt afterwards, but it was worth the legible hand writing.  Hartley tugged out the page and handed the pad and pen back to Caitlin.

"Thanks," he told her, as Patty dragged Earl off in cuffs - the idiot had hit her for intervening and was now under arrest for assaulting a police officer.  Walking over to the stunned looking James, Hartley handed him the shelter information.  "Hi.  I'm Hartley."

"Uh, hi... what's...?" he looked at the piece of paper in confusion.

"Look, I used to know Earl and he hasn't changed at all.  That is the information for a nearby abuse shelter.  When you're ready to ask for help, they will help you."

"I... he's not..." his voice shook, "I'm fine.  Really.  I shouldn't have said anything."

"The way he treats you is wrong and it's not your fault, no matter what he tells you.  But... like I said.  When you're ready, they'll help."  Hartley watched, feeling sad as he watched the other man clutch the piece of paper in his hand.  Once upon a time, that was him, accepting Earl's abuse and feeling like he deserved it.  "This cafe gets frequented by the police a lot; the station isn't far from here.  It's a good place to visit when you're not feeling safe."  He turned and rejoined Caitlin, leaving Jitters with her.

"Did he treat you like that?" there was no misunderstanding what she meant.

"Caitlin..." Hartley ran his left hand through his hair nervously.  "Dr. Wells helped me get away from Earl."

"Shit..." she blushed and covered her mouth.  "Sorry.  Just... every time I think that the way he betrayed us all can't get worse, I learn something new and it does."

"Yeah.  Look, just don't... I don't want to talk about this with the others, okay?"

"I won't say anything," she promised.

* * *

After the run in with Earl, what Hartley would've preferred to do was go home, put on Haven again, and maybe sleep some more.  Instead he gathered Caitlin and Cisco in Wells' marker board room and set Ray and Harry on entertain Barry duty (which consisted of Ray asking Harry ridiculous questions about Earth-2, much to Barry's amusement).

Then Hartley went over everything on the boards: the Zoom Timeline, the metas, and velocity.  There wasn't too much to say about the force field cage, since Cisco had already gone over that one with Harry the day before.

The names on the list of metas hit the duo about as hard as Hartley had thought it would.  Cisco already knew about his doppelganger, but the others were pretty much a shock.

Caitlin had to get up and walk out of the room to pace in the hallway for a few minutes after hearing about herself and Ronnie and Stein's possible - probable - fate.  Cisco tried to make a joke about the evil version of himself having a good family relationship with Dante, but it just sort of fell flat.  It was almost a relief to shove those boards out of the way and move on to the info on velocity.

Once he was done, Caitlin had him go back over the information on velocity a second time.  "Harry said he worked on it with Jay?"

"Yeah.  He said they were developing it together, but Jay was against Harry's decision to end the project."

Cisco hummed thoughtfully and then mused, "I can get why Jay was upset about it; something that could make him faster than Zoom had to be awfully tempting."

"But not worth his life."  Caitlin shook her head, looking at the list of side effects felt by the speedster mice.  "Did Harry mention any speculation on what the effects of this drug on speedsters would be?"

"No.  Want me to go grab him?"  Hartley offered.  She nodded, seeming distracted, and Hartley exchanged a curious look with Cisco before heading down the hall to the cortex.  "Harry, Caitlin wants to pick your brain on something," he said.

"Oh thank god."  Harry was out of the room at a pace that would've been impressive were speedsters not a thing.

Noticing Barry try to hide a yawn, Hartley motioned for Ray to follow him out into the cortex for a minute.  "Barry looks like he's about to fall asleep."

"Yeah.  He's taking all this surprisingly well," Ray answered, glancing back towards the infirmary in concern.

"I doubt that'll last once he can sit up and remembers that the only wheelchair we've got is Wells' chair sitting in storage."  Hartley couldn't imagine willingly sitting in that damned thing himself.  "Do you mind staying with him for a few minutes longer; I think Caitlin was on to something and I want to know what.  But then I really do want to go over STAR Labs' proposal for Palmer Tech with you."

Ray nodded.  "Sure.  I can wait.  Maybe I can lull Barry to sleep."

"That would be good for him," Hartley agreed and they parted ways again.

Hartley hurried out of the room and headed back towards Caitlin, Cisco, Harry, and the marker boards.  As he approached the room, however, he could hear Caitlin asking Harry, "so one of the side effects of velocity on a speedster could be the loss of their speed?"  She sounded upset.

"Yes?" Harry's voice was wary.  "It seemed likely that velocity would negatively effect a speedster's natural speed and healing.  It's why I shuttered the project; it wasn't worth the risk to Garrick.  Why is this relevant?  I mean... I suppose it would make a good weapon against Zoom, but after what happened with the inhibitor it's not worth the risk to Barry to even consider it."

"Do you think..." Caitlin paused, hesitant, and Hartley sped up a bit, walking into the room as she asked, "do you think Jay might've taken velocity before his last fight against Zoom?"

The room went dead silent.

"He said Zoom took his speed," Cisco pointed out weakly.

"Which would you rather admit to; having your powers taken by your worst enemy... or losing your speed and healing and possibly be dying because you took an unproven drug with known deadly side effects?" Hartley asked softly, leaning against the door frame and wondering how the hell he'd missed this earlier.

Harry swore, throwing one of the markers across the room to bounce off the wall.  "What the hell was he thinking?"

"He wasn't.  He wanted to defeat Zoom, probably thought the cost would be worth it and didn't let himself think about what the consequences might be if he failed."  Hartley touched Caitlin's shoulder lightly.  "Are you okay?"

"I... I'm going to go check on Barry," she declared, leaving the room.

"I hate this week," Hartley declared, rubbing between his eyes as his ever present headache started to make itself known again.  "This has been a really shitty week."

"You're telling me," Cisco sighed.

* * *

"So, what do you think," Hartley asked.

Ray had gone silent, save for the occasional excited clarification here and there, but he'd just finished reading the last document in Hartley's proposal and he looked... surprisingly neutral.  That was the business shark expression, Hartley supposed, and it definitely worried him.  Hartley had a few other ideas for bringing in money to STAR Labs, but this one was the one that worked to their current strengths the best.

"There's room to haggle over the monetary percentages, but... I like it."  Ray grinned, flipping open the file to one of the project designs included.  "This medical scanner is really already operational?"

Hartley nodded.  "It's in the infirmary; you can get Caitlin to show it off to you the next time you go sit with Barry," Hartley told him, relieved.

The business proposal had been fairly simple; STAR Labs would be contracted to Palmer Tech to deliver x number of completed, marketable projects each year - the number of projects to be determined when they actually sat down with the lawyers and hammered out contracts.  They would choose their own projects and do all the development in house, keeping all the patents for themselves, but Palmer Tech would control the manufacturing and marketing process.  Even with most of the income from the marketed items going to Palmer Tech to cover manufacturing costs, STAR Labs would still end up making a very tidy sum each year to help offset the costs of running a lab that doubled as a Super Hero Headquarters.

"Do you already have lawyers lined up to represent you in the contract negotiations?" Ray asked absently, flipping through another set of designs that STAR Labs had completed just prior to the explosion; that one didn't have a working demo any more - it had been cannibalized for some anti-meta device before Hartley had been locked up in the pipeline - but it would be easy enough to make a new one.

"Eobard Thawne may have been evil, but he had excellent taste in lawyers," Hartley told him.  "So we'll be using them."

"Okay, good.  I'll need to get this okayed by the board, but if I can show them some of the working products you've outlined here then I doubt they'll say no.  It'll need to be a virtual tour, though... unless you can hide Harry and the Flash related stuff well enough to pass a guided tour of execs and lawyers?"

"How about a live stream?" Hartley asked.  "That would be easier and we could keep it away from the cortex to avoid the issue entirely."

"Oooh, that would be perfect," Ray agreed.

"So... call it morbid curiosity, but are you only agreeing to this because it'll help keep the Flash funded or..." Hartley knew he probably shouldn't ask, but he really did want to know the answer.

"Well... it is why I decided to listen in the first place," Ray admitted wryly.  "STAR Labs' name is still kind of mud right now, so getting the Board on... board to even hear the proposal will be the biggest sticking point.  But, well... the tech here speaks for itself," Ray flipped back to the scanner design again.  "I want one of these for the Arrow Cave, if it's really everything that you're saying it is."

"Please tell me you call it the Arrow Cave to Oliver's face," Hartley pleaded with a grin.

"What else would I call it?" Ray asked, confused.  "Anyway, it may be more expensive to make than conventional x-ray devices, but it looks like it's safer and creates more accurate and useful imagery as well."

"It does.  It's basically Caitlin's most used device in the infirmary at the point, what with how often..." Hartley trailed off for a moment, expression souring.  "How often Barry gets hurt," he finished.

Ray winced and they both went quiet.  Eventually, though, Ray said, "so I was thinking maybe I'd stick around for a while.  You know, to help hold the fort while the Flash is out of commission.  As long as I'm not stepping on any toes or anything.  I mean... I know you get out there some too as the Pied Piper and I don't want to make you think I think you can't handle it, because I'm sure you totally..."

Hartley stopped Ray's rambling by closing the file folder and using it to cover Ray's mouth.  "I prefer acting as backup, not primary, when it comes to crime fighting.  So I, personally, would be more than happy to have you stick around pitching in as the ATOM.  You'll need to run it by the others, but I'm sure they'll be fine with it too.  We do like you around here, Ray."

Taking the folder and putting it back down on the table, Ray beamed at Hartley, looking utterly adorable and pleased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles gleefully* I have gone completely off the rails of season 2 now.
> 
> You'll notice that Harry only listed Reverb as having visions; that's because he assumes any other 'powers' presented by Reverb come from his technical genius and not from Dark Matter. Possibly some sort of energy throwing gauntlets, though he's hesitant to speculate too much especially now that Cisco is starting to grow on him. I do love the idea that part of why Harry is so prickly about working with Team Flash at first is because on Earth-2 there's an evil speedster working with Killer Frost and Reverb and just who is working with the Earth-1 Flash but their counterparts. It's been fun playing with that some here; it probably made him wonder if maybe Earth-2 Barry was Zoom and he was making a huge mistake trusting them to help him save his daughter. But with Caitlin and Cisco being such kind, genuinely nice people and everything Barry was willing to risk to fight Zoom... then there's Hartley who, as far as Harry knows, has no connection to Zoom on his Earth whatsoever... this version of Harry has found himself growing attached to the team despite his every intention not to.
> 
> Also, Haven is an awesome show. I think its still on Netflix, so I urge everyone to go watch it and ship Audrey/Nathan/Duke like I do.


	4. In Which (Unfortunate) Discoveries Are Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hartley finally smooths out Zoom's voice enough to recognize the speaker... which drags up all Hartley's fears and insecurities as he realizes that someone else he's come to trust has betrayed the team. But this time he doesn't have to deal with the repercussions alone.

_Hartley couldn't remember the last time he'd been such a third wheel.  Caitlin and Jay's flirting was kind of hilarious, but mostly made him feel awkward and invisible._

_He was contemplating giving them a little verbal jolt - a reminder that, uh hey, audience here - when there was a sound, like a speedster arriving outside the van, and Hartley jumped, startled by the noise._

_"Is that Barry?"_

_Caitlin and Jay didn't even look at him.  They just kept chatting amicably, but Hartley wasn't paying enough attention to know what they were saying._

_A dark shape walked into view through the front window and Hartley jerked in shock, tumbling off his seat in the back.  When he scrambled to his knees, Zoom was gone from view again._

_"Holy shit," he breathed.  "Did you two see that?"_

_But Caitlin and Jay were still ignoring him._

_"Rude," Hartley muttered, clambering to his feet and then to the front of the van to get their attention.  This was important; why weren't they listening?  But his hand passed right through Caitlin's shoulder.  "What the hell?!"_

_Hartley scrambled back, stumbling all the way back until he fell through the closed doors at the back of the van.  He scraped his right arm on the pavement and winced at the sight of road rash on his palm.  Why did the pavement hurt but he fell through the doors?_

_Shrugging off the weirdness, Hartley looked all around the outside of the van for Zoom, but there was no sign of him.  So, Hartley climbed back into the van through the still closed doors to try telling the others again.  Maybe this time they'd hear him.  He nearly screamed at the sight that greeted him.  Caitlin was still there, looking normal, and still chatting away like everything was fine.  But Jay wasn't there anymore and the person who'd taken his place wasn't replying to Caitlin, though she seemed to think it was still Jay and that she was still getting satisfactory replies._

_It was Zoom, silent and motionless, and he was staring right at Hartley._

Hartley woke and, for a dizzying, confused moment, he thought that Zoom was still there from his nightmare, staring at him.

But he was alone in his dark room.  No Zoom, no Jay, and no Caitlin in sight.

Still, there was no going back to sleep after that freaky dream.  Not when Hartley saw Zoom's mask every time his eyes closed.

Glancing at the clock on his nightstand and grimacing at the fuzzy numbers that formed 3:27 when he squinted at them, Hartley retrieved his glasses and sat up.  He flipped on the bedside lamp and winced at the sudden brightness.  Once his eyes adjusted, Hartley slid out of bed and pulled on a t-shirt, retrieved his Gryffindor snuggie, and settled down on the couch for another _Haven_ marathon.

If he was lucky, he'd have time for the episode where Audrey convinced Duke to strip down to his underwear and ask for a hug all in the name of confusing a telepath and totally not because she was hoping to see him naked or anything.  (She had great taste in men, that Audrey Parker.)

* * *

_Look at your hero._

If Hartley never heard that phrase again once he'd identified Zoom's voice, it would be too soon.  He adjusted the frequency of the recording again, hopefully nudging away the last of the speed force induced distortion and played it again.

_Look at your hero._

Hartley made a frustrated noise because it was so close.  He knew that voice.  It was right there, like having a word on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't place it.  It was like when his mind occasionally blanked on a word.  He could talk around it or even offer synonyms (or switch to another language entirely, usually Latin, but that annoyed people), but the word itself eluded him.  And he knew why, too.  The speedster sounded so angry... Hartley could feel himself recoiling instinctively, wanting to run and hide all at the same time that he wanted to lash out and hit Zoom where it would hurt the most.  (Hartley was fairly certain his fight or flight impulses were a little defective.)

Apparently, Hartley had never heard Zoom's Earth-1 counterpart this angry before and it frightened the hell out of him, even more so than Earl ever had.

"Okay, so... process of elimination," Hartley muttered softly to himself.  "It's not Barry; the pitch of the voice is wrong even with the remaining non-speedster distortion present.  It's not me, for the same reason.  It's not..." he swallowed heavily and tried again.  "It's not Eddie Thawne, thank god for that."  If it were an alternate version of Eddie, that would kill Iris and Barry.  It really would.

It wasn't Snart or any of his pet rogues.  It wasn't that annoying twit he'd gone on a date with a few weeks ago who'd babbled about himself the whole time and couldn't be bothered to remember anything Hartley had to say but had still thought he'd be getting sex out of the date.  It wasn't Earl... which was also a relief.  Earth-1 Earl was evil enough, abusive jackass that he was.  Earth-2 Earl didn't need to outdo him.

Hartley continued his mental rundown of potential Zoom counterparts, but none of their voices fit.

Stabbing at his keyboard, Hartley tweaked the voice again and replayed the thrice (or more) damned clip.

Then he played it again.

Fingering his hearing aids, Hartley seriously considered turning them off, hiding in the deafening shriek of the tinnitus in his ears.  He didn't want to keep doing this.  He didn't want to know anymore.

He played the clip a third time.  Immediately afterwards he played the unmodified version of the clip... well, the version with all the other noises stripped out, but Zoom's voice unfiltered.  It was the same and Hartley wasn't sure how he'd missed it before.  He saved his progress on the modified version and put his computer to sleep.

Then he sat there and stared blankly at the darkened screen because... no.  Just... no.

He had not made the same damn mistake again.  He had not put his trust in someone who intended to betray him from the start.

Hartley's inability to recognize Zoom's voice had nothing to do with how angry the bastard was after all.  No, it had to do with how firmly into denial Hartley had crawled.

"Hey, Ray and I were hoping for your opinion on..." Cisco's voice startled Hartley out of his haze and the other man trailed off when the physicist turned to look at him.  "Woah... Hartley."  Cisco crossed the room in a handful of steps and immediately dragged Hartley out of his chair and into a hug.  "You're crying.  What's wrong?"

"I think..." _I think Jay is Zoom.  I know Jay is Zoom._   The words wouldn't come out and he burrowed a little closer to Cisco.  "I think maybe I'm overdoing things," he said instead.  He'd tell Cisco, and the others.  He would.  He really would.

Just... not now.

"I never should have downloaded that footage," Cisco muttered, voice full of self reproach.

"I would have just found it myself," Hartley argued, relaxing a little in the feeling of warmth and safety that Cisco had brought with him.

Cisco pulled away and examined Hartley's face with a critical expression.  "Have you been sleeping?"

"Not well.  Nightmares."  Hartley shrugged.  "It's not a big deal."

"Yeah, right up until you give yourself a stress migraine," Cisco grouched, full of concern.  "You need to sleep."

Hartley thought of the nightmare he'd had just that morning, of Zoom taking Jay's place and just... staring at him.  On some level, he really had already known.

"Seriously, man, just go nap in the server room or the break room or the cot that's still in the cortex.  You look like crap."

"You really know how to make a guy feel pretty, don't you," Hartley drawled teasingly, wiping away the dampness from the tears he hadn't even realized were there until Cisco had pointed them out.  "Look... if I go sleep in the break room will you and Ray go be in there too?  I just... really don't want to be alone right now, okay?"

"Yeah."  Cisco promised.  Then... thoughtful and regretful, he said, "I've got my date with Kendra tonight.  I'm taking her to a _Princess Bride_ quote along at the Lounge Cinema.  But maybe, after everything that's happened, I should cancel."

Hartley wanted to be selfish and say _yes, cancel on her_.  He was having a shitty day - week at this point, really - and he did not like the idea of sharing Cisco with Kendra Saunders.  But getting jealous and petty and cranky helped no one and... if Cisco weren't dating Kendra then he still wouldn't be dating Hartley.  So Cisco might as well be dating Kendra, if that's what made him happy.  Hartley sighed and kept the promise he'd made to himself just days earlier.  "No.  Go, have fun.  If you try to call her and cancel, I will hear and I will drag you over to Barry and let him deal with you.  He will give you that 'tragic but trying to pretend he's not really tragic' look of his and wax lyrical about how you're his bestest friend ever and of course you should be going on your date and let him live vicariously through you."

Cisco wrinkled his nose.  "Yeah, that's... I don't really want to get emotionally blackmailed into having fun.  That just... sounds weird."  He paused, then, "you're right, though.  Can't let Zoom stop us from living our lives, right?  Besides, Kendra's never seen the _Princess Bride_ before."

"What?" Hartley asked flatly, shocked.  "She's never... how is that... how is not seeing the _Princess Bride_ a thing that happens?"

"I know.  It's like never seeing the original _Star Wars_ trilogy or _Labyrinth_ or _The Secret of NIMH_ or..."

"I'd offer _Ladyhawke_ up for that list, but apparently that one really is kinda obscure."  Hartley yawned despite himself and Cisco smirked a little.

"Go to the break room.  I'll grab Ray and we'll join you in there so that our technobabble theorizing will lull you to sleep."  Cisco prodded him a little to get Hartley moving.

"Tyrant," Hartley grumbled, yawning again.  But he did as told and stumbled off to the break room where he settled onto the couch, tugging the fuzzy blanket folded over the furniture's back down so that he could cocoon himself within it.  There was even a big, plush pillow for him to lay his head on.  By the time Cisco and Ray arrived, he was already half asleep and the sound of the two scientists debating the technical details of creating a power source from the dwarf star alloy Ray had given them the last time he'd visited helped lull Hartley the rest of the way to sleep.  The last thing he remembered before dozing off was the feeling of someone - probably Cisco - slipping his glasses off his face.

When he woke, a few hours later, Hartley couldn't remember dreaming even once.

* * *

While Hartley had been sleeping, Henry Allen had arrived at STAR Labs.  Apparently Joe had taken the day off of work to go fetch Henry from whatever cabin in the woods the good Doctor had been living in as he slowly readjusted to the non-prison life.  Caitlin had related the incredibly awkward first meeting between Harry and Henry with the gleeful amusement of someone who'd wished to have had popcorn while watching as Harry had tried, valiantly, not to make a total ass of himself.  While not wholly successful on that front, Harry had managed to gain Henry's sympathy by explaining about his daughter.  As it was, Hartley had woken up to the smell of Thai food takeout for lunch and the sound of the two men swapping stories about Barry and Jesse as children.

If Hartley were completely honest, he'd have to say it was the most surreal thing he'd woken up to in a long time.

But Cisco and Ray had still been in the room too, and Caitlin was there commandeering the folding tables stored in the break room closet while directing Joe on where to find chairs to bring into the cortex.  Lunch, it seemed, was to be served where Barry could most easily be included.

So Hartley found his glasses and joined Caitlin in setting up the tables while Ray found the break room plates, Cisco was put to work finding drinks for everyone, and Harry and Henry carted the food out of the break room to the cortex.

Right as they were serving out the food, Iris showed up to join them, taking the empty spot at the table by her dad.  The group lunch turned into a surprising success with everyone, even Barry, smiling and laughing at some point.  Though Barry was, clearly, happiest when talking to his father.

All throughout the lunch, Hartley tried not to think about what he'd realized that morning before Cisco had walked into his lab.  But he knew he was going to have to face it soon.

Jay was Zoom.

It was an utter disaster.

* * *

Cisco did not let Hartley return to his lab after lunch.

"You're needed on this; we're trying to build that mobile Zoom trap idea you distracted me with the other day," the engineer told him, dragging Hartley to Cisco's lab instead.  Ray was already there, bent over one of the jumbo sized tablets they used for sketching up designs.  "So no stressing over that recording for the rest of the day and," Cisco poked Hartley in the shoulder, hard, "the next time you get overwhelmed, you come find me or Caitlin or someone to spend time with, okay?"

Hartley nodded, a smile slowly spreading across his face despite himself.  He really ought to tell Cisco what he'd figured out... but he still wasn't really ready.  Tomorrow morning, he promised himself.  "Don't hate me for this, but we should really get Harry in on the project too.  He's got the experience from working on his own version of the force cage, remember?"

Cisco wrinkled his nose in distaste - which was adorable - and then sighed.  "Yeah, you're right.  I'll go get him."  He trudged off.

"Those two really don't get on, do they?" Ray asked, looking a little amused.

"Better than either of them want to admit and apparently _Star Trek_ is the great equalizer, but I doubt they'll ever be friends."  He paused and then snorted softly.  "Then again, Cisco and I used to loathe each other, so stranger things have happened."

Ray laughed.  "I can't imagine you two loathing each other," he said.  "I mean... you two have the kind of friendship that makes me a little jealous actually."

"Really?" Hartley felt a little startled by that.  "Well, that's pretty recent change for us.  Anyone tell you how I joined this team?"

By the time Ray and Felicity had shown up last spring, the Patro-no had already been finished and Hartley had taken a few days away.  Wells hadn't been happy about it, but Hartley was already couch surfing between Cisco, Caitlin, and Joe's instead of stuck in the pipeline and tensions between everyone and Wells had been inches away from its all time high.  So upsetting Wells wasn't something any of them were particularly bothered over.  At any rate, it had seemed like a good time to fix up his resume - he'd been temporarily reinstated at STAR Labs and was pulling a paycheck at Barry and Cisco's insistence - but hadn't expected to stick around long; so he'd been using Cisco's spare laptop, snuggled in a nest on the other man's pull out couch, Netflix playing _Firefly_... when Caitlin had called to say that Cisco had been stung by a 'bee' and had such a bad allergic reaction that Barry had to use the speed force to shock Cisco to keep him from dying.  She'd assured him that Cisco was fine but she was keeping him overnight for observation.  Just in case.

Hartley had spent that night on the STAR Labs break room couches instead, after catching the last bus of the night over to the lab to check on the engineer.  It had been the following night that Hartley had told Cisco what he'd seen while stalking Wells - that the man could walk - and... Hartley had come to realize that, despite everything, he'd come to trust Cisco completely.

Ray interrupted Hartley's thoughts, dragging him back to the conversation at hand.  "Something about you attacking Doctor Wells and then rescuing Caitlin and Cisco from some sort of dementor?  I wasn't exactly working with Oliver and the others in Star City at the time either.  In fact, I kind of... attacked Oliver and Dig after I first completed the ATOM suit because I didn't believe Felicity when she said he was being framed."

Huh... that was news to Hartley.  "How'd that go for you?" he asked dryly.

"Oliver found the weak point in my armor and disarmed me.  I thought he was going to kill me and instead he lectured me on trusting Felicity more.  I was... a little embarrassed."

Hartley snickered for a moment, then sobered before relating an abbreviated version of his capture by Team Flash and why he'd been going after Wells to begin with.  "I really never expected to care about any of them or even want to stick around, but..."

"Here you are anyway," Ray filled in, smiling.  Then he leaned in, his expression turning a tad conspiratorial.  "So... what's the deal with you and Oliver?  He seemed pretty upset over some argument you two had before he came back to Star City."

Wrinkling his nose a little, Hartley shrugged and figured why not.  He'd actually talked about some of this after the singularity when Cisco needed someone to get drunk with.  They'd toasted Ronnie and then, as Hartley had gotten pleasantly buzzed, he'd found himself opening up about someone else entirely.

"Oliver's mother and mine went to boarding school together as kids, so they were friends.  Every Queen family Christmas party had my family attend and I got to put up with Oliver during his drunken frat-boy phase, which started while he was in High School and didn't end until he joined his father on that ill-fated yacht cruise... which was about six or seven months after I turned eighteen and my cousin caught me making out with another guy at college.  She outed me to my parents, who turned around and disowned me.  Great birthday surprise, truly."  Thank goodness for his scholarship.  "Anyway, I spent Junior year doing a combination of couch surfing, living out of my car, and staying at one of the Freespace shelters near campus.  It sucked and I had no idea how I'd manage senior year living that way.  Not with one senior project per semester so I could keep my double major, keeping my grades up so that I didn't lose my scholarship halfway through the year - which had already been a struggle the year before - and I was trying to land an internship at STAR Labs.  I basically needed a miracle and was completely freaking out over it all... and that was when Tommy showed up."

"Tommy Merlyn?"  Ray sounded surprised.

"Tommy Merlyn," Hartley confirmed.  "I'm not even sure how he heard about my disownment.  But... he wanted to be able to help someone.  He couldn't find Oliver to bring him home, but... I was a short train ride away and if I could just shelve my pride a little..." Hartley skated his fingers along the edge of the lab table absently.  "It wasn't really about me and I think that's why I let him help me out.  But afterwards, we were friends.  Weird friends, because we had such very different definitions of fun; he was a party boy and I've never really enjoyed clubs...  I knew all the science fiction franchises and he barely knew the plots for the original _Star Wars_ movies.  He was loud and abrasive and... so very tragically straight."

"Did you have a crush on him?" He sounded curious and Hartley had to wonder how much Ray had heard about Tommy, who'd been so important to at least two of the people Ray now called his friends.

"For a while, yeah," Hartley laughed.  "It didn't last long, fortunately.  Crushing on straight guys always sucks.  But... somewhere along the way, he became my best friend.  He came out to Central City to celebrate with me when my internship at STAR Labs was turned into a full time position after graduation and I went to Starling to commiserate with him when he and Laurel broke up the first time.  When he was dealing with Oliver coming back and treating him like shit, I was the one he vented to.  I was also the one who gave him advice on dealing with being temporarily disowned by his father.  When he got his heart broken with his on again, off again relationship with Laurel... he was supposed to come here for a weekend away from everything that was weighing on him there.  Instead I got a call from Laurel, telling me Tommy died saving her life.  I blamed Oliver."

Ray winced.  "So when he showed up here to help Barry..."

"I went off on him," Hartley confirmed.  "We had a pretty loud shouting match and both said some pretty awful things.  Can't say I'm looking forward to him showing up on Monday."

"Well, somewhere in there you apparently said some things Oliver needed to hear, because when he came back he didn't run off with Felicity like they'd been originally planning to," Ray told him.  "He stuck around to try and make up for all the damage he'd done while hiding his plans to deal with Ra's al Ghul from us.  And when Thea asked about it, he credited his decision to stay to something you told him."

"How's Thea doing?" Hartley asked, changing the subject... sort of.

"She seems to be doing okay; she's really enjoying being able to bond over the whole bow-carrying vigilante thing with Oliver.  I guess you've known her a long time too."

"Yeah.  When Oliver would ditch her at those Christmas parties, she and I would team up to pull some pranks on him in retaliation.  Many of which were... kind of mean spirited in retrospect?  But I don't regret any of them.  Especially that one time we made him pee blue..." Hartley grinned wickedly as Ray cracked up.  Smiles and laughter really were a good look on the other man and Hartley eyed him speculatively for a moment.  After all, Ray was attractive, single...

"Found him," Cisco declared as he walked back in, exasperation written on his every line as Harry followed him in.

Hartley felt his stomach do a little flip when the long-haired man's eyes met his.  Yeah... if it weren't for his infatuation with Cisco, he'd might've tried to find out if Ray had any interest in men.  But he needed to get a handle on this crush first before he started looking for someone to move on with.  Maybe, though, when STAR Labs and Palmer Tech had all the legalities of the partnership he'd pitched ironed out, Hartley would be in a better place emotionally to consider asking Ray out.  Or asking anyone out, for that matter.

Shaking off the thoughts regarding his utter lack of a love life, Hartley started running calculations in his head.

* * *

They finally had a basic design for a dwarf star alloy based battery for powering a force cage locked down by the time Cisco left for his date with Kendra.  (It was pretty similar in design to the version powering the ATOM suit and Cisco was super excited about putting it together.)  After another hour of work (now focusing on creating an alternating frequency design to create the 'walls'), Hartley needed a break to get away from Ray's unrelenting optimism and Harry's equally unrelenting cynicism.  So he'd told them they'd pick it up tomorrow and left to get some tea from the break room, settling down for a few minutes to just let his mind wander.

Inevitably, it wandered back to Jay.

Hartley felt like there was a broken record playing in the back of his head.   _Jay is Zoom is Jay is Zoom is..._

Not even his special stash of tea really eased his mind, though at least the scent of it helped take the edge off the stress headache that had been building up ever since Cisco left.  He sat on the couch he'd napped on that morning and made himself drink all the tea before, finally, checking his watch for the time.  It was near seven-thirty and felt much later.  Grimacing, Hartley washed out his mug and put it away.  There were some takeout menus for his favorite places stashed away in his lab.  He figured he could grab something quick and make a decision on how to handle the Zoom recording.  Because the question now was... did he trust the others to take his word on this or did he continue with the finicky process of smoothing out the voice so that the others could hear the truth of it for themselves?

He knew Cisco would believe him without question.  Cisco had believed him about Wells and would believe him about Jay.

But... Caitlin liked Jay.  Might finally be moving passed her grief over Ronnie because of her feelings for Jay.  This would crush her; would she really be able to accept that everything good about Jay was a lie based on Hartley's word alone?

And Barry... Barry had mistrusted Jay at the start, but moved past that mistrust quickly enough.  The two of them had fought Sand Demon together, rescuing Patty (Hartley still wasn't clear how, exactly, Jay's presence had been explained to the Detective) in the process and generally cementing all their opinions about the guy.  Jay Garrick had proven himself a hero and... how would Barry react to Hartley tearing down another one of his heroes as a fraud?

Joe and Iris would probably actually believe him easily enough and... Dr. Allen and Ray had never even met Jay, so they'd probably also be fairly accepting of Hartley's word on the matter.  But Harry had worked with Jay for months.  Possibly even counted the other man as a friend until their falling out over the velocity serum.  He'd let Jay into his labs, trusted the man around his daughter...

When it came to Harry, Hartley was expecting an explosion of epic proportions.

And, well... there was also Hartley's own tendency towards obsessiveness to contend with.  Part of him felt like he hadn't really finished with the recording; that it wouldn't be finished until everyone could just hear it and know the truth without him having to say a word.  His fear and anxiety had already combined to make the words almost impossible to say when it was just Cisco in the room with him and it was only getting harder the longer he kept the truth bottled up.  Wouldn't it be easier to just... play the recording and let them hear it for themselves?

So with these thoughts twisting around in his brain, Hartley headed back towards his lab.  It wasn't until he turned to face the doorway that he realized someone was already there.

"Ray."

"Hartley."

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, Ray standing in the doorway to Hartley's lab, not actually blocking the way in but making it clear he planned on hovering around if Hartley went inside.  "Okay, fine.  What did Cisco tell you before he left for his date?"

"What?" Ray practically squeaked.  "I just thought we could... you know, hang out?"

"You would make a terrible spy," Hartley told him.  "Seriously, Ray, did Cisco sic you on me so that I wouldn't be left alone in my lab with the recordings of Zoom's voice?"

"... No?"

"Yes.  Ramon told both of us to make sure you don't overdo it," Harry said, walking up.  "Anyone else want dinner?  I was thinking Big Belly Burger."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Hartley shrugged, ducking his head to hide his sudden amusement.  "I don't need minders."

"Keep telling yourself that," Harry shot back.  "Food.  Now."

"Let's see what Barry, Henry, and Caitlin want, then."

"I've already taken their orders.  Let's go."  Harry made shooing motions at the two of them.

"And you also volunteered us to help collect the food?" Ray asked in a bemused tone, as if he weren't sure if he ought to be annoyed or amused and just settled somewhere in between.

"Does it have to be Big Belly Burger?" Hartley grumbled, letting Harry herd him along the hallway.

"Yes," Harry replied emphatically, likely answering both questions at once.

"You know..." Hartley took a stab in the dark, "the first step in overcoming an addiction is to admit you have a problem."

"I'm not addicted to Big Belly Burger," Harry groused with the intonation of someone who'd said those exact words innumerable times.

Hartley smirked.  He shoots, he scores.

"Of course not.  You're just obsessed, that's all."  His smile slipped as they passed by the cortex on their way out.  Barry was still stuck in the infirmary.  Sure, having his dad around probably helped, but... "I've got an idea.  Mind if we swing by my apartment on the way back with the food?"

"As long as it doesn't keep us from dinner for long," Harry grumbled.

Ray laughed.  "What's the idea, Hartley?"

"Barry could use a change of scenery and we have a conference room with a pretty large projector screen down the hallway... and I have some dvds with _MST3K_ episodes burned on them."  Hartley shrugged, adding, "Cisco shouldn't be the only one having a fun movie night."

"Ooh," Ray gave a little bounce of excitement.  "I love _MST3K_.  That is an excellent idea."

"If I knew what that is, it's entirely possible I'd agree."  Harry looked between the two scientists in confusion.

" _MST3K_ is short for _Mystery Science Theater 3000_.  The excuse plot was that the main character - either Joel or Mike depending on the season - had been kidnapped by mad scientists intent on running experiments on driving a person crazy through the use of ridiculously bad movies.  Joel created robots to help him maintain his sanity and make fun of the movies with him and, when he got away, the robots stuck around to help Mike maintain his sanity too."

"So... basically it's stupidly bad movies with running commentary?" Harry summed up.

"Yep," Ray said at the same time Hartley said, "yes."

"Yeah, why not?" Harry sighed, "I'm sure I saw worse things in college, anyway."

Hartley grinned.  "Give me a minute; I'll see if I can get Caitlin to start setting up the conference room while we're out."

"Meet you in the garage, then," Ray agreed cheerfully while Harry grumbled under his breath about being hungry and not wanting to wait.

Hurrying through the cortex to the infirmary's entryway, Hartley asked, "anyone interested in some _MST3K_?"

"Seriously?" Barry perked up.

"Yeah, seriously.  There's that conference room with the humongous projector screen that would be perfect to use as a mini-theater.  Once it's had a little re-organization, anyway."

"If we moved most of the tables out..." Caitlin mused to herself.

"Exactly my thoughts," Hartley told her, grinning.  "What about you, Dr. Allen?  Interested in some hilarious riffs of terrible movies?"

"Please, Hartley, call me Henry," the older man invited with a smile that Barry had clearly inherited.  "It's been far too long since the last time I saw Crow and Servo mock a truly terrible movie; count me in."

"Right, well, I'm going with Harry and Ray on the food run, so we'll be swinging by my apartment to get the dvds before we head back," Hartley told them.  Glancing over his shoulder he added, "I should head to the garage before Harry's Big Belly Burger addiction turns him feral and he hallucinates that Ray is a special with fries." Hartley grinned as Barry started snickering.  "If maybe one of you could get started on rearranging the conference room, I'll pitch in as soon as we get back," he promised.

Caitlin rolled her eyes.  "I wouldn't want you dismantling tables with that hand anyway," she told him, gesturing to his right hand.  "Get a move on.  Henry and I can handle the conference room and Barry here can supervise."

"I'll try not to be too obnoxious about telling you two when you've missed a spot," Barry joked.

Hartley laughed and left them to it, swinging back by his lab to grab his keys, before heading off towards the garage.  Still, despite how pleased with himself he felt over everyone's support of the _MST3K_ idea... the recording in his lab gnawed away at the back of Hartley's mind.  They all deserved to know the truth... but was it too much to ask for just one nice evening before dropping that bomb into everyone's laps?

* * *

The conference room had been turned into a fairly comfortable mini-theater by the time Hartley, Harry, and Ray returned with the food and dvds.  Joe and Iris had also arrived at some point with food of their own (thankfully, since no one had remembered to call them for the Big Belly Burger run) and Barry had been wheeled in on the infirmary bed, propped up, and given the best vantage point of the screen where Caitlin had been playing cat videos to test out the audio/video laptop connection.

Of course, then had come the great episode argument where everyone wanted to watch their favorite _MST3K_ episode and, in hopes of averting a small war from breaking out between Iris and Barry over whose favorite episode was better, Hartley told Iris that he did not have a copy of her favorite episode because, for whatever reason, he hadn't been able to find any torrents of that season when he'd been rebuilding his dvd collection.  It had the virtue of being true - there were several seasons he'd yet to track down.  He did have Barry's favorite episode, however, and Hartley made an executive decision to play that one first.

With the episode decided, they'd all settled down in the darkened room to eat dinner and watch the movie.  Barry recited all the best riffs along with the _MST3K_ characters and Iris and Joe sang along with the opening theme.  Ray and Caitlin debated the scientific plausibility of the movie's plot while Hartley, occasionally accompanied by Henry and Harry, added some snarky commentary of his own.

It was as the episode was winding down - movie night having been a smashing success at cheering Barry up - that Hartley got a call from Cisco.  The phone vibrated on the table next to the popcorn that Hartley had split with Henry and he'd glanced at the caller-id intending to swipe call reject.  But he saw Cisco's name and snatched up the phone instead, excusing himself into the hallway.

"Hey Cisco," Hartley greeted.

"Uh, hey," Cisco sounded nervous.

"If you're expecting me to be annoyed about the wonder twins, I am; but I'll save all my bitching for when you can hear it in person," Hartley assured him.

"Wonder twins?" Cisco now sounded confused.  "Harry and Ray?"

"Turns out they have a shared love of Big Belly Burger; they spent the entire car ride there waxing poetic over the various toppings and condiments and the regular fries vs sweet potato fries and what seasoning went better with which type of fries.  I was this close to stabbing them with the restaurant's plastic sporks when we arrived.  They're basically foodie soulmates."

Cisco snickered.  "Right.  Well I'm not going to apologize for inflicting them on you," the engineer told him.  "I don't think I've ever seen you that upset over anything before," he added, clearly referencing that morning, "and I just... I want you to remember you're not alone.  We're all here for you, Hartley.  Even having Harry around is better than being alone, though I figured Ray would help balance out Harry's grouchiness."

Hartley shifted uncomfortably.  Cisco really had no idea just how touched Hartley felt by his concern and... Hartley had no idea what to say.  "Well," he opted to change the subject instead, "you didn't call to find out if Harry'd murdered Ray yet - or if I'd killed them both - so what's up?  How your date go?"

"Great, it was great," Cisco's enthusiasm lit up his voice.  "She loved _The Princess Bride_ and we had a lot of fun.  We made plans for another date next weekend.  But, uh... I had another vision.  Um... there weren't... that is... were there hawk people on Harry's list of Earth-2 metas?"

"I think there were two winged metas on the list," Hartley said, frowning, "but I don't know if they were hawk like or not.  I can ask Harry for you."

"No, it can wait until tomorrow," Cisco said quickly.  "That's... I'm not really sure I was seeing Earth-2 metas anyway.  She looked... well, heroic.  I just didn't feel like this was someone who was working for Zoom."

"Your powers, your instincts," Hartley told him.  "If your gut says 'not bad-guy' then we'll go with that."

There was a little sigh of relief over the speaker and Hartley felt warm at being able to give Cisco the reassurance he'd needed.

"We turned conference room three into a theater room," Hartley told him.

"What?!"

"Yeah, just finishing up an episode of _MST3K_.  I think Harry's found his favorite thing about Earth-1."

"You guys were _Mystery Science_ -ing without me?  Man..." Cisco made an aggrieved noise.  "Where's the love, Hartley?"

If only Cisco knew.  "I guess you'll just have to fight Iris for the right of picking out the next episode when we do another movie night here," he said instead.

"Ah... Iris... you know, she's um... kind of..."

"Likely to kick your ass and win episode choosing privileges?"

"I'll just concede them for now," Cisco muttered.

Hartley snickered.  "So, see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah.  See ya in the morning.  Sleep well, okay?"

"You too."  Hartley clicked off the call and leaned back against the wall, tucking the phone away in his pocket.

Sleep well?  Not likely.

* * *

As Hartley had predicted, he did not sleep well that night at all.  In fact, four hours after he left to go home, Hartley found himself sneaking past the cortex (it looked like Caitlin had finally gone home for a change and now Henry slept camped out in hearing range of his son, who in turn slept fitfully) and into his lab.  He wasn't too worried about running into Harry, who'd taken over the break room on the opposite side of STAR Labs, near where the cafeteria was.  (Near where Hartley's old office and lab space had been back before... when life made sense and meta-humans were only a thing in Hartley's favorite comic books.)

He'd booted up his computer and stared blankly at the screen for a long while, mouse hovering over the files he'd been working on earlier... or the day before at this point, really.  He really didn't want to have to subject himself to any more of Zoom... of Jay's voice mocking Barry, though.  He supposed the question came down to how much he really trusted the others to trust him.

_"His spine has healed already, Cisco.  I watched him for weeks before I finally attacked and he was already ditching his wheelchair around the house when I started.  Every time you see him sitting in that thing, it's just another one of his lies."_

Cisco had listened, jumped to the right conclusions, and refused to stick his head in the sand, even when the source of the news was someone the engineer had spent a great deal of time loathing.  In turn, the others had listened to Cisco when he backed up Hartley's story and it even turned out that Barry and Joe already had their suspicions about Doctor Harrison Wells.  They'd all believed him and none of them had even liked him then.  (Well, okay, they'd kind of liked him after everything he'd done to help save Ronnie and then when he'd helped out again with the situation with General Eiling.  After all, they'd been letting him do the couch surfing thing.)  But now?

Now they were his friends.

Hartley pulled out his flute and spent an hour tinkering with that, falling into an oddly relaxed rhythm.  When his phone chirped at him to remind him that he had wanted to try sleeping again, Hartley reluctantly closed down his computer, put away his tools, and padded off to the server room where he closed his eyes for what felt like just a few minutes... and woke to the very annoyed sounding voice of one Cisco Ramon.

"Please tell me you didn't spend the whole night here."

"Not all of it," Hartley grumbled back, hand groping along the floor under the cot until... glasses.  "Nightmares suck and it was either come here or fall asleep watching _Haven_ again."  He yawned and changed the subject.  "Think we can gather everyone up in the cortex?  I... I figured out who Zoom is."

"You... did you figure that out last night?"

Hartley shook his head, looking away.  Shame curled through him; he should have told everyone already.  "It's why I was so freaked out when you walked into my lab yesterday.  I should have told you then, but... I needed time to process, I guess.  I'm sorry."

There was silence and Hartley was afraid to look up and see what sort of judgement the silence was really implying.  Then Cisco sat down beside Hartley on the cot, put a hand on his shoulder, and squeezed lightly.  "Who is he?"

Hartley shook his head.  "Just... get everyone in the cortex.  Please, Cisco."

* * *

"Ramon said you figured out who Zoom is," Harry said when Hartley walked into the cortex.

Hartley had his hands wrapped around a mug full of tea and he didn't say anything while he walked over to the nearest desk to put it down.  He took the moment to kind of look over everyone else.  Cisco, Caitlin, and Ray stood together anxiously; Harry looked impatient as he stood off to the side; Barry sat in a wheelchair - Wells' old chair - looking pale already with his father beside him.  Only Joe and Iris were missing since both of them were at work.

"Rathaway..."

"Harry, how much do you know about Jay Garrick from before the accelerator exploded?" Hartley asked quietly.

"Not much."  Harry had gone pale, though, as his mind started connecting dots.

"Hartley, what does Jay," Caitlin started to ask, but she trailed off when Cisco touched her arm and shook his head.

"I know he ran his own lab," Harry continued.  "He said he was working to purify heavy water to the point where all radiation residue was negated.  I'd never even heard of him before he showed up as the Flash."

"And he let everyone know his real name and face without considering what the consequences might be to his family, friends, coworkers?"  Hartley leaned against the wall.

"He didn't have any coworkers; from the way he described his project, it was a lab with exactly one employee.  Him.  Self-funded startup with money left to him by his dead parents.  Never mentioned any friends to me, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have them... but then Zoom would have used them against him," Harry frowned.  "It's not exactly unheard of for a scientist with a big ego to wind up friendless."  He looked, perhaps, a touch chagrined as he said that, making Hartley wonder if Harry had left behind any friends on Earth-2 when he'd made the reckless decision to travel to Earth-1.  "Rathaway, what are you getting at?  I thought you were going to tell us about Zoom."

"Did you do a background check on him or did you just take his word for it?"

Harry's eyes narrowed.  "I did a cursory background check.  Enough to verify his backstory.  Why are you asking about Garrick?"  His voice shook, despite the question.

"It was Jay's voice, wasn't it?" Barry spoke up, his own voice utterly devoid of emotion.

Hartley nodded.  "Zoom's voice was familiar to me because it was Jay's voice.  Eiusdem carmen, alium versum."  Same song, different verse.  Eobard Thawne would've been appalled with him for going with a literal translation of the phrase instead of the equivalent Latin saying, but Hartley couldn't remember what the equivalent cliche would have even been at the moment and, more importantly, he was just relieved to see the faintly bewildered expression on this Wells' face.  Harry Wells apparently didn't speak Latin.

"But he's fought Zoom.  There's video of him fighting Zoom.  Not even a speedster could move fast enough to create mirages of himself in two completely different outfits and make them look like they're chasing each other," Harry insisted.

"He wouldn't have to."  Barry was gripping the arms of his chair tightly.  "All he'd have to do is travel back in time.  Then one of him is Zoom and the other is Jay.  They both fight and then one of them travels back in time afterwards to close the loop."

Hearing them speak jokingly about there being two versions of Barry at one time was one thing.  Accepting that the same could be said of Zoom or Jay - that it was happening because Zoom was Jay - was clearly another thing entirely for Harry.  The man had gone completely silent, eyes closed, hands curled so tightly into fists that his knuckles were turning white.

"But... he helped Barry save Patty," Caitlin said desperately, while Cisco reached over to pull her into a half-hug.  "All Jay has ever done is help us.  He can't be..."

"There was a guy I knew at Iron Heights," Dr. Allen said abruptly, "who'd been convicted of arson, amongst other things.  He'd set buildings on fire and then double around so that he could go in and save the people inside.  He liked the attention.  Seemed really nice, swore he was innocent, but then tried pulling the exact same thing while in jail to get himself on the good side of one of the gangs.  It was a compulsion for him, hurting people so that he could save them.  Well that and pyromania.  Some people are very good at hiding the worst parts of themselves, but less so at controlling it."

Harry's fist hit the wall.  "That son of a bitch," he hissed.  "I let him in my labs.  I trusted him around my daughter."  He laughed, a little hysterical.  "I was trying to make the bastard faster.  He probably thought it was hilarious just how god damn gullible I was."

Henry Allen walked over to Harry and put a hand on his shoulder, proving himself to be much braver than Hartley because he was certain Harry was in a 'punch first, pay attention to who he's punching second' mood.  But Harry just shook a little with rage and then went completely still.  "I think I saw a punching bag in the exercise room if you really want to hit something."

"I... I need to be alone," Caitlin said, jerking away from Cisco and rushing off.

Barry let out a shaky breath.  "I could use a little space too."  He paused and then added, "I'm sorry Hartley.  After everything with Wel-Eobard Thawne, I can't imagine that was an easy thing to tell us."  Barry ran a hand through his hair distractedly.  "I should... I should call Joe and let him know what you figured out."  Then he too was hurrying away, as fast as the wheelchair could roll.  They just let him go, Harry and Henry quietly leaving a few moments later, presumably to go find that punching bag for Harry to hit.

Then it was down to Hartley, Cisco, and Ray.

"Damn..." Cisco muttered.  "No wonder you didn't say anything when you first figured it out.  That's..."

"Everyone took it a lot better than I was afraid of," Hartley admitted quietly.  He paused and then checked his watch.  10:26 am.  "Look I... I'm going to head over the shelter early.  We're supposed to be getting some new volunteers today and I promised to help introduce them to the kids.  And I need a break.  From here."  He waved his hand absently.  "Okay?"

"Yeah.  Hartley..."

He tilted his head to the side in askance.

Cisco's mouth opened and then shut again, as though he weren't quite sure what to say.  Then, "we should have another team movie night tonight.  More _MST3K_ or something cheesy.   _Monty Python_?"

" _Young Frankenstein_?" Hartley offered instead; sacrilegious though it might be for a nerd, he just got bored with _Monty Python_ movies for some reason.  Though he could still quote the movies with the best of them.

"Destiny, destiny, no escaping that for me," Ray intoned with a small, infectious grin, apparently seconding _Young Frankenstein_.

"We'll figure something out," Cisco promised, but the look on his face said he wasn't just talking about the movie selection.

Hartley nodded.  Somehow, they'd work through this.  Jay Garrick wasn't going to stop them from living their lives.

* * *

Instead of heading out immediately, Hartley found himself sidetracked by the paralyzed speedster in the wheelchair, sitting just outside the front entrance of STAR Labs and staring, vacantly, at a spot that would've been of no consequence to nearly anyone else.

"This can't be good for your mental health," Hartley said, moving to stand beside Barry.  "Also your gaze is off by about a foot to the left."

The first sentence had garnered no reaction from Barry, but the second one got him an annoyed glare.

"Look, if you want to stare morbidly at the site where you got your back broken by someone we all trusted, then fine.  I'm not going to stop you.  Or lecture you.  But, for god's sake, if you're going to be emo then at least do it right."

"You are such an ass."

"I try."

Barry huffed softly, a sound that was as much irritation as it was amusement, and relaxed his white-knuckled grip on the arm rests of the chair just the slightest bit.  "I feel like such an idiot."

"You were the one who didn't trust him.  We talked you around, but it turns out your first instinct was right after all.  I'm sorry."  Hartley sighed and then added, "this is going to sound stupid, but I've been kind of waiting for something like this to happen for months.  Before Jay even showed up."

Barry frowned.  "What?"

"It's... okay, so I knew my parents wouldn't take it well when they found out I was gay and that I'd probably get disowned when they finally found out, but I didn't expect  them to actually tell people that they don't have a son.  That... hurts more every time I hear someone relay that message.  And then there was Dr. Wells... I know a lot of people thought I had a crush on him, but he was more like a second father.  When he had security throw me out of STAR Labs, I thought I'd never trust anyone ever again."  There was also the thing with Earl and, in retrospect, his relationship with Josh hadn't exactly been all that healthy either.  But it was his parents and Dr. Wells who'd screwed him up the most.

"How'd you manage to move past that?" Barry asked softly.  "I mean... you trust us don't you?"

"Yeah.  You, Cisco, Caitlin... even Joe and Iris.  Weirdly enough, I also trust Harry.  Which I don't want to look too hard at right now; too many issues with Eobard Thawne to wade through there."  A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth when Barry snorted in quiet amusement.  "I guess Cisco's unrelenting cheerfulness just got to me.  Or maybe it was just... seeing how hard Wells' betrayals hit everyone else, I realized I didn't have to be alone anymore.  But... I'm sort out of practice at the whole friends thing.  Well, I was never really good at it to begin with, actually... and I wasn't even sure any of you wanted me as a friend until recently.  So I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  For someone to realize that none of you really need me here and..." he laughed softly.  "I finally realize that I have actual, real friends who really do want me around... and then it's Jay who fucks us all over.  Didn't see that one coming at all."

"Me either," Barry agreed.  "Do you think..." he trailed off and looked away, this time directly at the spot where Hartley remembered hearing the sound of a snapped spine come from.

"Do I think what?"

"Is there something wrong with being a speedster that made them like that?"

The real question Barry was asking was blindingly obvious.  "You're not like them, Barry.  It wasn't being a speedster that turned Thawne or Garrick into monsters.  That was in them already and they made the choice not to fight it.  But what makes you the Flash?  Pretty sure that was all there before you had your speed."  He grinned at Barry's confusion.  "You're a CSI, Barry.  You can't tell me that you didn't choose that career for reasons other than a commitment to righting wrongs and the pursuit of justice.  Wells couldn't take that from you and I'd bet anything Jay can't either.  Now... do me a favor?"

"What's that?"  Barry sounded more than a little bemused.

"Go talk to Caitlin.  I'd do it, but I'm not sure how welcome I'd be as today's bearer of bad news.  Talk to Cisco.  To your dad.  Call Joe and Iris, get them here, tell them what I found out.  But don't stay here, driving yourself crazy staring at the place where you got hurt.  Because in a few days you will not only be able to walk away from this place... you'll be able to run.  And, more importantly, you'll start to remember how to trust in yourself.  Because that's the hardest part to get back after being betrayed.

"And get back inside.  You're supposed to be sick with the flu, remember?"

Barry rolled his eyes.  "Where are you off to?"

"It's Saturday; I do tutoring at the youth shelter on Saturdays," Hartley reminded him.

"It's really Saturday already?"  Barry groaned softly.  "For some reason I was thinking today was Friday."

"Nope."

"What am I going to do on Monday?" he muttered.  "The flu excuse only goes so far.  Patty's already wanting to stop by and see me."

"Say you're taking off time to spend with your dad.  But... Barry, if you really expect things to go anywhere with Patty, then you should consider telling her the truth.  You've only been on one date so far, so it's not like you need to make the decision now, but... she's a detective.  Figuring out things people don't want her to know is her job."

Grimacing slightly, Barry nodded.  "I know.  Coming back here later?"

"Yeah.  Cisco was saying something about another movie night."  Hartley started to leave.

"Hey, Hartley?"

"Yeah?" he turned, glancing back.

"Thanks, for being my friend."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I'm not sure why it took me so long to get this chapter out. Well, okay, part of it was that I had a small home reno that sort of burned me out for a while. 
> 
> My master bathroom was redone and it looks gorgeous now. But it took the tile guys three times to get the accent tile in the shower right. Three times. It was glass tile, which looks gorgeous now, but the only reason it does is because I knew more about installing glass tile than they did from watching Property Brothers. Suffice it to say, they will not be doing my guest bathroom when I finally psych myself up to go through another round of home renovations.
> 
> But this chapter has been sitting half-finished for weeks now while I've made excuses not to touch it or The Day After the World Ended. (Which has been touched even less than this one. *sigh*) I'm starting to feel like my writer's block is lifting, though, so YAY! Also this chapter went in a slightly different direction than I was anticipating, but I think it turned out for the best.


	5. In Which (Old) Plans are Revisited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry starts regaining feeling in his legs and Cisco thinks he has an idea of how to start harnessing his visions, but the fact that Jay Garrick can walk (or run) back into their lives any minute is a looming shadow over the STAR Labs team...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title refers to how they plan to catch Zoom now. It may be a rehash of an old plan, but its one with merit that, with their improved understanding of speedsters, I might even let work.
> 
> Anyway, this is basically the last 'eye of the storm' chapter in which the team gets to enjoy some team bonding. Ray probably wishes Team Arrow would do this stuff, so maybe he'll be talking Felicity, Oliver, and the others into team movie nights sometime soon. (Well, he'd probably convince Felicity and Thea who would then tell Oliver on no uncertain terms that Team Movie Night is go and no he can't object.)

Hartley knocked on the open door to Cisco's work space, gaining the attention of the three scientists inside.  "So, how's the cage coming along?"

"Come take a look," Ray waved Hartley over.

"How were the kids?" Cisco asked.

"I let Damian and Joaquin talk me into a round of HORSE after they finished their physics homework.  They thought they'd have an easy win for a change because," he waved his bandaged hand and added sheepishly, "they were right too.  Missed practically all my shots.  One of the new volunteers won, however.  Pretty barista calling herself Kendra."  He grinned impishly when Cisco's eyes went wide.  "Yeah, Kendra Saunders is one of our new volunteers.  She's good with the kids; even bratty Jack fell in line when she chewed him out for being a perv."

"I had no idea; she didn't say anything yesterday..."

"Well, you're both still in the 'getting to know you' stage of dating."  Hartley shrugged.  He knew from experience that some people just got weird about volunteering, as though community service were the sort of thing that should only be done to get out of paying parking tickets, and he could never tell who'd be an ass about it until they freaked out over learning he'd signed up to work at a soup kitchen Christmas Eve.  "One of the kids I was pretty sure was a meta finally admitted as such... because she heard about the Boot.  She wants to know if there's a version that works yet because she's afraid she'll set her bed on fire in her sleep one of these days."  Maria, who refused to give a last name and claimed to be seventeen but was probably fifteen, had pyrokinetic abilities and vivid nightmares.  Not the greatest combination.  He'd guessed she could control fire due to an incident a few months earlier with another kid who was a bit of a firebug, but he hadn't known until she talked to him that afternoon that her abilities extended to creating fire too.  "I know we've put the Boot on hold for now, but it definitely needs to be next on our list.  We don't need to make something that'll work for the cops..."

"Just something that'll work for her.  Low power consumption so that the shelter doesn't start racking up the electric bill..." Cisco hummed thoughtfully.  "Maybe some sort of emitter that she could put under the bed?"

Hartley could already see the gears turning in Cisco's head and he looked just so adorable... "I told her the tech wasn't ready yet, but she'd be first on our list of beta testers when it is.  Not exactly the news she wanted, but better than she was expecting.  She was pretty worried about how much it'd cost, so..."

"She's got powers because of STAR Labs," Cisco said, wide-eyed and emphatic, "the least we can do is help her feel safe while she's sleeping."

"Exactly.  But the speed cage comes first," Hartley added, peering over the formulas and designs on the tablets and computer screens.  After a few moments, he absently marked a section of the main formula that felt wrong at first glance.  He'd get back to it in a minute after looking everything else over.

"Huh..." Ray looked concerned, "maybe I should be doing more volunteer work at Star city."

"Freespace has shelters in Star city too," Hartley told him, "and they're pretty much the best out there.  If you want to start volunteering, or just giving more charitable donations, then I definitely recommend them."  Hartley frowned, highlighting two sections of the formula with a swipe of his hand.  "Okay, does that look wonky to anyone else?"  It looked like a typo that had been subsequently copy-pasted elsewhere later on.

"No, that... oh.  Yeah, no, that's wrong."  Harry made a frustrated sound as he wiped out the two sections and rewrote them entirely, then saved so it would update on everyone else's screens.

"So what about you, Harry?  Do any volunteering on Earth-2?" Ray asked.

"Mostly charitable donations, but I do enjoy taking part in Homes For All on occasion.  It's a housing project Mayor Snart," Harry paused, momentarily amused as Cisco choked, "started up to create affordable housing for everyone in Central City.  The tiny houses are particularly fun and usually volunteers can complete one of those in a day, depending on the design.  Central City had the fastest declining homeless population in the United North America, all because of Snart's reforms that actually helped our city's poor find jobs and housing.  My Earth is behind yours when it comes to the field of mental health, but Snart was pushing through a lot of reforms to make our treatment of the mentally ill better too.  Zoom's set a lot that progress back by years."

"Mayor Snart," Cisco muttered, looking utterly bewildered.

"I could see it," Hartley said with a bit of a smirk, not looking up from his tablet as he continued to peruse the work the others had gotten done.  "Guy's certainly ruthless enough for politics."

"Wait... Snart as in Captain Cold?" Ray blinked uncertainly.

"Mayor Leonard Snart... who is indeed my Earth's doppelganger of Captain Cold."  Harry's voice was sounding a little tighter again after the mention of Zoom.

"Need a break, Harry?" Hartley asked, eyeing the man in concern.

"What I need..." the older man's expression twisted and his mouth clicked shut before he could say anything unfortunate.  "I need coffee," he finally said shortly, walking out.

Hartley turned to Cisco.  "How's he doing?"

Cisco wrinkled his nose and waved his hand in a 'so-so' motion.  "I found him staring at a picture of his daughter earlier.  Then we ran into a bit of a wall with the rotating frequency equations and he's been kind of... grouchier than normal ever since."

"Well, Hartley's already identified two of our problem spots already and it looks like Harry fixed them, so that wall is looking a little less insurmountable now," Ray offered cheerfully.  "Maybe he'll feel more optimistic once he's gotten his coffee."

"I doubt it."  Hartley shook his head.  "This has not been a good week for any of us, but for him and Barry it's been especially bad.  I'm a little worried that he's just going to keep pushing himself until he breaks.  Anyway, it's dinner time.  Someone promised me a funny movie and you two need a break while I play catch up.  Maybe going over this with a fresh pair of eyes is all we need to jump the hurdle here."

"How does pizza sound?" Cisco was already pulling up the online menu for Pizzas and Paninis, a little hole in the wall type place nearby that made the best pizzas in Central, as far as Team Flash was concerned anyway.

"Actually, the works Stromboli sounds amazing," Hartley said absently, peering over Cisco's shoulder for a moment before returning to his tablet.

He absently marked another spot on the plans that seemed off.  "What funny movie got decided on?"

"It came down to _Young Frankenstein_ and _Down Periscope_ ," Ray responded cheerfully.  "So I guess the question is Gene Wilder or Kelsey Grammer?  Barry couldn't decide, or at least claimed he couldn't.  He tried to get Caitlin to make the final decision but... she said she didn't care."  Ray looked worried now.  "I guess the thing with Jay being Zoom is hitting her really hard?"

Ray didn't even know that half of it.  "Let's go with _Young Frankenstein_ first and then _Down Periscope_ if we decide there's enough time afterwards."  Hartley tapped his fingers along the outer edge of his tablet thoughtfully.  "I'm going to check on her," he declared, putting down the tablet and walking out before the other two could say anything more.

* * *

Predictably, Caitlin was in the infirmary.  Less predictably, she was reading fanfiction.  Hartley recognized the site logo just before she started scrolling down the page.

"You know, that site has some hilarious real person fiction regarding the Flash.  There's a a pretty strong movement that ships him with Captain Cold."

Caitlin, who had just taken a drink of water when Hartley spoke up, promptly choked.  Coughing and spluttering, she turned to glare at Hartley, who just smiled back innocently. 

"Thankfully PiperFlash has only a very small following," he continued shamelessly, after a moment of silence to let the ColdFlash reveal really sink in.  "The fact that it exists at all is too weird as it is.  I mean, Barry's pretty and finding out he vibrates?  Every gay man's dream right there.  But all that relationship drama he's already in with Iris is a huge turnoff."

"Why did you have to tell me all that?"  Caitlin shuddered.  "Snart and Barry," she muttered.

"Setting aside Snart's personality defects, don't kid yourself.  They'd be hot together."  Hartley hopped up onto the empty cot that had been serving as Barry's bed for the past few days, wondering where the speedster had gotten off to.  Hopefully somewhere indoors and with his father instead of outside and brooding, again.

"He'd only make Barry's occasional bad-punning worse," Caitlin grumbled.

"Probably."  Hartley paused and then... "so, how are you dealing with what I said this morning?  About Jay."  Not that she really needed him to specify what he was talking about.

Caitlin froze.  "Hartley..." she looked away, but there was something about her expression that was almost guilty or... ashamed?

"Learning that the seemingly nice guy you like is actually an abusive asshole is pretty awful thing to find out.  But that does not reflect badly on you.  You know that, right?"  Hartley waited a minute and when she didn't respond, he said, "I'm serious, Caitlin."

"I know," she said quietly.  "But I... it feels like an insult to Ronnie.  That I could... I could like someone like Jay."

"You liked the person he pretended to be.  There is a difference there," Hartley pointed out.  He paused and then said, "Earl was charming when I first met him.  Charming and sweet and... he wasn't any of that underneath it all.  So unless you're going to blame me for being fooled by Earl or Barry for considering Jay a friend, you don't get to blame yourself for liking Jay."

"It's not the same thing," she objected weakly.

Hartley raised an eyebrow.  "The difference isn't as big as you think."

Caitlin scrunched up her nose and grumbled, "well, if you're going to be all logical about it, fine.  I'll try not to be so angry with myself over this mess."

"Good."  His eyes flicked back to the computer screen.  "So, what are you reading?"

"Nothing."  Caitlin minimized the browser.

" _Harry Potter_ story?" he guessed, though knowing Caitlin's preferences it was more likely to be a _Glee_ fanfic.  "I know some amazing Harry/Draco stories I could recommend you."

Snorting softly in amusement, she smiled faintly.  "I'm sure you do.  Sometimes I can't tell whether you or Cisco are the bigger Potterhead."

Hartley gasped, mock offended and pressing a hand over his chest.  "I am the Chosen One, remember?"

Another snort of laughter greeted his statement, but then Caitlin sobered and looked at him quizzically.  "How can you joke about that, after..."

"After Eobard Thawne turned out to be Voldemort to Barry's Harry Potter?"  Hartley grinned when Caitlin rolled her eyes.  "Does that make Snart Draco Malfoy?"

"I will hit you with this file," Caitlin threatened, pointing to a fairly thick looking folder.

"Anyway, he wasn't... he wasn't all bad.  Yes, he created the accelerator to fail and was obsessed with proving himself to be the better speedster than Barry to the point where nothing else mattered to him... and was probably a psychopath.  But its easier to remember, now that he's dead, that sometimes he wasn't a complete bastard.  Everything he did for me to help me get away from Earl... he was sourcing materials from Rathaway Industries until he found out about my parents... there's a lot of things that he did that I can choose to either drive myself nuts trying to figure out what his ulterior motive was or I can just accept that sometimes he did nice things without there having to be a hidden agenda behind it all.  I've done the nitpicking thing before... I let my parents and Earl and a lot of other people who've let me down make me angry and bitter and... when you're driven to the point of giving super-villainy a chance, something's got to give.  I came pretty close to making the worst mistake of my life and I don't want to be that person anymore.  I don't want to let Wells truly evil moments be the only part of all those years that I remember.  So I've had to figure out how to..."

"Let it go?" Caitlin filled in quickly, a hint of cheekiness in her voice.

Hartley stuck his tongue out at her.  "Yes.  Let it go," he conceded.  "It's not easy.  But you know what helps a lot?"

"What's that?"

"Being around people who, despite knowing me, seem to like me anyway."

She smiled, a little wobbly looking this time.  "Of course we like you, Hartley."

"I'm a little slow about stuff like that," he admitted quietly, "but I have finally figured that one out."  He stood up and held out a hand to Caitlin, who let him pull her to her feet.  "So, what's your opinion on _Young Frankenstein_?"

"It's pronounced Frahnk-en-steen," she corrected teasingly.

"We are such nerds."

* * *

The first thing Hartley noticed upon walking into their make-shift theater room was that the chairs had been replaced with the break-room couches.  "Looks comfy," he commented to Cisco as he dropped onto the nearest one - which happened to be the one he'd napped on the other day - and swiped back into his tablet.  "Whose idea was this?"

"Mine," Cisco told him, a touch smugly, at the same time Ray said, "Cisco."

"This is why you're my favorite," Hartley blurted out, then tried desperately not to blush.  Bad Hartley.  No flirting.

The fact that Cisco was preening did not help.

"We found out something about the couches when we were bringing them over earlier too," Cisco told him.  "Sleeper couches."

"No way."  Hartley hopped back up and flipped up the middle cushion.  Sure enough, there was a handle for pulling out the folding metal frame of a double bed.  "It's official.  All our team movie night marathons happen here from now on.  Giant screen, sleeper couches, there's a popcorn maker hidden somewhere in the cafeteria..."

"There's a what, where now?" Cisco's eyes were huge.

"There's a popcorn machine in the cafeteria somewhere.  Or there was before Harrison fired me; I haven't actually checked yet, but I'm sure its still there.  You didn't know?"

"I have to see this for myself..." Cisco started to walk out, but Ray stopped him before he could take more than a few steps.

"We have to make the food pickup run, remember?"

"Oh.  Right."  Cisco struck a determined pose.  "I will find the popcorn machine later then."

"You're right, Hartley," Caitlin observed from the doorway, amusement on her face.  "We're all such nerds."

"Sad, sad nerds," Hartley agreed solemnly, then curled back up on the couch with the tablet, ready to finally finish his perusal of what the others had been working on.  Then he just tuned out the rest of the world until the smell of delicious pizza and stromboli lured him back.  He reached out with his right hand to set aside his tablet and winced as his wrist complained stiffly.

"How's your arm?" Caitlin asked, having noticed his reaction.

"Don't kill me, but I played basketball earlier."  Hartley winced, again, this time at the expression on her face.  "Yes, I am an idiot."

"At least you admit it," she retorted imperiously.  Caitlin held out her hands (making grabby hands at him in the process) and Hartley held out his arm for inspection.  "It doesn't look too bad," she told him, once she unwrapped the bandages.  "Did you at least remember to ice it after playing?"

"Yeah, there were some hot and cold wraps I used," Hartley told her, glancing over to see that Barry, Henry, and Harry were all watching in quiet amusement.  "So, where's the food.  Because I can definitely smell the food..."

"Cisco and Ray put in the break room; they're grabbing the tables we used the other day to set up at the back of the room," Barry answered.  "Hungry?"

"Starving."  Which he hadn't been until he smelled the distinctive scent of Amercanized Italian food.  But now the stromboli that had merely sounded good before was making his stomach rumble.  "I'll see if they need a hand," Hartley decided, wrapping his wrist back up deftly.

"When you take that off tomorrow morning, you can leave it off," Caitlin told him.  "Don't overdo it, though.  No more basketball until I say its fine."

"Yes Caitlin," he promised, then hurried away to find the wondrous smelling food.  When he arrived at the break room, he made a beeline to the counter, reaching over with his left hand to pop open one of the covers on a box that clearly did not hold pizza... only to get his hand smacked away by Cisco.  "Hey!"

"You can wait for it all to get moved to the theater room," Cisco insisted, smirking.

"I take it back.  Ray's my favorite," Hartley pouted.

"Aww, come on," Cisco grumbled, face falling even as Ray fist pumped and mock cheered.  "I ordered everyone cannoli, surely that counts for something."

"Well..." Hartley hedged; he really shouldn't be flirting, but... it wasn't like Cisco even realized that was what he was doing so it was fine... right?  "I suppose."

"Does this mean I'm not the favorite after all?"  Ray gave them each a sad-puppy stare.

"That... that right there is lethal," Cisco muttered.

"Yeah..." Hartley muttered, then louder, "sorry dude.  Cannoli is an important part of the Pizza and Paninis experience."  These particular cannoli came with a perfectly flaky pastry and the most amazing creme filling; they were so good that the last time the team had any, Caitlin had to remind them all that dessert came second, not first.  (Even she had given the desserts some longing looks before they'd all dug in to the pizzas.)

"Alas," Ray shut the door on the closet and pushed one folded up table towards Hartley, saying dryly, "for one shining moment, I was the favorite.  I'll treasure it always.  Carry that?"

"Got it," Hartley confirmed, picking up the strap that stuck out of the top.  Cisco snagged some of the food, following them back to the conference room.  Once the first table was set up, Cisco put down his arm load and grabbed Caitlin to help him retrieve the rest.

When the second table was standing beside the first, Hartley looked around to find Harry looking through his tablet, so Hartley joined him, letting himself get pulled into a discussion about rotating frequencies and power differentials.  

"And here I thought you were hungry," Cisco teased, sitting down on the couch by Hartley.  "Here, pass this to Harry," he directed, handing Hartley a plate of pizza.  The food was followed up by a water bottle, both of which Harry dutifully accepted, though he was still mostly distracted by the plans and equations on the tablet.

"For you, one stromboli."  Cisco gave Hartley one of the small boxes, keeping a second one for himself.  There was another water bottle handed over as well, which Hartley placed by his feet before opening the box and eyeing the plastic cutlery inside warily.  The last time he had one of these, the knife snapped halfway through.

Hartley was still debating the merits of getting a real knife from the break room when someone lowered the lights and Henry started up _Young Frankenstein_ on the laptop that had been attached to the projector.  Eh, Hartley could just use his hands; it had been a while since he'd last seen this one and didn't want to miss any of his favorite lines.

* * *

The lights had gone out completely when _Young Frankenstein_ ended and _Down Periscope_ came on.  Thankfully, Harry had taken that as his cue to take a cannoli and head to his room to get some sleep.  Hartley was able to scoot down the couch to get some space so that Cisco wouldn't notice how much of a struggle it was for Hartley to keep his eyes on the movie instead of the engineer.  Cisco had been practically fellating his dessert and making little food-gasmic noises of pleasure that were just...

Hartley didn't even make it through half his dessert before he had to flee the room (subtly, of course) to go splash cold water on his face and mentally curse himself for managing to forget about Cisco's oral fixation.  Cisco practically molested Red Vines all the time, after all.  Getting the image of Cisco's mouth wrapped around flaky pastry or nibbling the end of a Red Vine out of his head, however, wasn't working out for him very well.

But when he remembered how devastated Cisco had looked when he'd learned about Jessie Wells... that did it. 

When he came back to finish his own cannoli some minutes later, Cisco was licking the last of the cream off his fingers.  Hartley very nearly whined in frustration.  

It had been a long day, though, and Hartley was exhausted.  So once he finally finished his own dessert, his eyes started closing.  Even without the distraction of Cisco's near pornographic consumption of the cannoli, Hartley still couldn't concentrate on the movie, feeling full and warm and comfortable... and the next thing he knew he was missing an entire chunk of the plot (including the whale song scene, which was a shame) and was being poked awake by Cisco... whose shoulder was under Hartley's cheek.

"Mmm... sorry," Hartley muttered, trying to sit up straight again.

"You weren't drooling, so don't worry about it.  Come on, we're going to pull out the couches."  Cisco stood up, grabbing Hartley's arms and tugging him to his feet.

Sleepily, Hartley blinked and swayed a moment, feeling a little clueless as to what was going on.  Then he saw the cushions come off and remembered what Cisco had revealed earlier.  Sleeper couches, right.  He took off the last cushion, setting it aside with the two Cisco had removed, and clumsily helped pull out the metal frame, unfolding it with a wince at the sound of squeaky hinges and the popping sound of bed springs un-squashing themselves.

"You kids enjoy your slumber party," Joe drawled headed to the door with Henry in tow.  He'd shown up with Iris maybe ten minutes into _Young Frankenstein_ , but it looked like Iris would be staying to share a sleeper couch with Caitlin.  "I'm going to go sleep in a real bed."

"I'm going to steal yours for the night again, slugger," Henry told Barry, ruffling his son's hair.

"Yeah, you didn't sleep too well on that cot last night, did you?" Barry asked, though it sounded rhetorical to Hartley.

"Night Joe, Henry," Ray called, enthusiastically setting up the middle couch.  "Barry, which side do you want?"

Which meant that Hartley would be sleeping with Cisco.  His brain might've over heated a bit at that.  He was still too much asleep for this.  And he also might've had the whole 'Cisco enjoying cannoli' image still stuck in his mind.

If Hartley was very lucky, this wouldn't turn into a total disaster.

"Hartley, if you'll finish setting up the couch, I'll go grab the quilts and pillows still stacked in the break room.  Iris, wanna help me with that?"

"Sure," she grinned over at Caitlin, "I'm not picky about sides, Cait, so whichever one you want is yours."

"I call right, then," she said, frowning at the bare mattress.  "I don't suppose we have actual sheets to put on these?"

All the infirmary cots were long twin size, so...

"Yup," Ray told them, contradicting Hartley's thoughts and producing a Target bag that Hartley had missed earlier.  He tossed a set of blue, cotton sheets to Hartley, dropped a red set on his own couch, then handed the butter yellow set to Caitlin.  "Cisco and I stopped by the store on the way to pick up our dinner order.  I mean, they probably really ought to be washed first, but we should be fine."

Hartley was already breaking the sheets out of the packaging to make the bed.  Once the fitted bottom sheet was on, he tucked the cushions back on to the couch, upright, in the space between the top of the bed and the back of the couch.  That way, if they scooted around in their sleep, their heads wouldn't end up shifting off the bed itself.  Then he put the top sheet on, tucking the bottom beneath the end of the bed.  By then Cisco had returned with quilts in hand, Iris bringing in several new pillows in Target bags that matched the one Ray had produced with the sheets.  Hartley snatched two of the pillows and put the pillow cases on them, Barry and Iris doing the same with the other four, and then Hartley kicked off his shoes, toed off his socks, and snuggled into the couch bed under covers that now included a quilt.

He kind of wished he could ditch his jeans, but he didn't have any pajama pants or sweat pants to change in to and he certainly wasn't stripping down to his boxers with this crowd... not to mention that sleeping pantsless in the same bed as he crush was an even worse idea than sleeping in jeans in the same bed as his crush.

But instead of doing the smart thing and offering to trade with Barry - he could say that the couch on the right would be easier for Barry to get on - he nuzzled his pillow and curled up on his side instead.  By then, Barry had already maneuvered himself from his chair onto the middle couch anyway.  Cisco settled back beside Hartley, propped up and ready to finish the paused _Down Periscope_ and probably watch another movie afterwards (had someone mentioned _Hook_?  Hartley had a distinct memory of hearing Ray chant 'Rufio, Rufio, Ru-fi-oooooo' but couldn't place it, so they must've decided while he was dozing on Cisco's shoulder earlier).

"Just to warn you," Hartley interrupted himself with a yawn.  "I'm a sleep cuddler.  So if I treat you like a life size teddy bear, its your own fault for sleeping on the same bed as me."

Cisco just smiled down at him.  "I'm fine with that.  Better a sleep cuddler than a covers hog."

"Mmm-kay," Hartley murmured, dropping back off to sleep to the sound of Marty Pascal freaking out as he was made to walk the plank.

* * *

Hartley jerked awake to a crashing noise.  He was curled around Cisco, having lived up to his 'sleep cuddler' warning, but there was no sleeping through Ray's stumbling antics or the wailing sound of the meta alert, though it was probably far less grating to everyone else's ears.

"What's going on?" Hartley demanded, looking around for his glasses.

"Uh..." Cisco was up now too, grabbing his phone.  "Break in at Seafoam Biotech; reports say... giant shark-man.  Great, must be King Shark."

"The one Harry shot?" Hartley finally located his glasses, and his own phone, and checked the message for himself, silencing the wail of his alarm.  "You named him and you didn't tell us?"

"Priorities, Hartley," Caitlin chided.  "Think you can handle King Shark on your own, Ray?" she added.

"Oh, yeah, giant shark man?  I got this.  My suit doesn't just shrink you know.  It embiggens."  Ray grinned, the look of a smug nerd making a geeky reference.

"I'm too tired to know what you allusion you're making," Hartley told him.

" _The Simpsons_ ," Cisco muttered quietly, just for Hartley's sake.  Louder he said, "I've got the comms; still have our frequency programmed into your suit?"

"Affirmative."

"Right then.  The rest of you, back to sleep," Cisco snatched at Hartley's glasses, putting them back on the table and ignoring Hartley's scowl of irritation.  "It's, like, four in the morning.  Seriously, this is me hitting snooze for all of you.  If Ray needs medical attention, I'll come grab you, Caitlin.  Really, Cait," he added insistently when the Caitlin shaped blur took a step towards him instead of her couch, "go back to sleep."

"Fine."  She put her head back down, muttering something under her breath about Cisco being bossy that made Iris laugh quietly.

"Um... guys?"  Barry said, tentatively, stopping Cisco in his tracks with the shaky tone.  Ray had already ducked out, though, presumably to find his ATOM suit and fly away to punch a shark.  "I just, um... I can feel my legs.  Sort of."

Caitlin was back up in a heartbeat, whisking the covers off of Barry moments later.  "Can you feel this?" she demanded, running a finger down the soles of his feet.

"Yeah."  Barry's voice was stronger now.  "Yeah... I can feel that."

"Dude, that's so awesome!"  Cisco scurried over to give Barry a hug, before dashing back to the doorway.  "I'll have to tell Ray over the comms."

Hartley padded back to his sleeper couch while Iris got up from her couch in order to settle next to Barry.  He meant to say something to Barry about it being great news... but Hartley didn't want to interrupt Iris or Caitlin and so he fell back asleep to the sound of their excited chatter.

When he woke up again, it was to the smell of donuts and coffee and Hartley was, once again, curled up around Cisco.

"When'd you come back?" Hartley mumbled, still half asleep and having to hide a jaw-cracking yawn as he reluctantly rolled away from Cisco.

"About an hour and a half after I left to run comms for Ray," Cisco told him.  "You immediately rolled over and latched on to me again, which was kind of adorable.  You really are the very definition of a sleep cuddler.  Anyway... King Shark got away, again, but he didn't get whatever he was after from the biotech place, so... it was a win.  Remember that vibe I told you about?  The one with the hawk-girl?"

Hartley nodded, glancing around sleepily to see that Iris was still sprawled out on her couch, but there was no sign of Caitlin or Barry.  Ray was snoring into the pillows of the middle couch.  "Did you have another vision of her?"

"Ray saw her.  She was already at Seafoam when Ray arrived, distracting King Shark so that the security guards could get away.  Apparently she had some sort of gold mask on her face, but just regular jeans and a hoodie, not the fancy armor she was wearing when I vibed her."  Cisco was grinning giddily. "She said she hadn't been intending to play hero or anything, but after what happened to the Flash she felt like she had an obligation to pitch in."

"So she's a meta from the accelerator explosion here on our Earth, then?" Hartley asked.

Cisco shrugged.  "I guess.  We never did figure out where Deathbolt got his powers from, though.  We'll have to ask her to be sure."

"Who do I need to thank for the donuts?"

"Joe and Henry, I think?"  Cisco gave a little yawn of his own.  "I wasn't really awake when the donuts arrived, but that's what makes the most sense.  They're all in the cortex now, though, checking up on Barry."

Sticking his phone in his back pocket and sliding on his glasses, Hartley quickly identified the maple donuts and stuck two on a plate.  Then he poured himself a cup of coffee.  "I think I'll join them, see how he's doing."

Cisco grabbed some coffee of his own and followed Hartley out, stealing a donut off Hartley's plate when they arrived.  Hartley gave him a halfhearted scowl in response.

"Hey, that was mine."

"You didn't really need two donuts, did you?"

Hartley stuck his tongue out at him.  "Yes, I did.  You're getting me another one when I finish this one."

"Do we have to put you two in separate corners?" Harry asked absently, holding a half-eaten chocolate twist donut and looking utterly ridiculous with a line of chocolate on his upper lip that he clearly was unaware of.

"No," Hartley and Cisco chorused, exchanging amused looks and, simultaneously, tacking on, "mother."

Harry threw his napkin at them.  Then he glanced around the room, looking a little nervous.  "So, we're just missing Palmer and Miss West," he mused quietly.

"Something you want to say to the whole class?" Joe drawled wryly.

"Actually... yes."  Harry frowned and put his donut down on what was, presumably, his plate.  "Are you done testing Allen for now, Snow?"

She nodded.  "For now.  In a little while, though, I'm going to want you two," she gestured to Joe and Henry, "to help Barry stand up for a little while.  No trying to walk," Caitlin added, giving Barry a warning looking.  "Just standing is going to be exhausting, so don't try to push it."

Barry nodded solemnly.  "Right.  Just standing, no walking."  A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, though, clear reflection of his excitement at the latest progress back to normality.  "Definitely no running," he added, just a touch cheekily.

"You and Hartley are awful patients," Caitlin grumbled, but she was smiling too.

"I apologized for the basketball," Hartley muttered.  "So, Harry, what's on your mind?"

"I..." Harry paused, hesitantly, then tried again.  "When I came here, I left behind a lot of things on my Earth that, it turns out, would actually be useful.  The plans for my version of the Speed Trap, the data from the Velocity trials... and everything I thought I knew about Garrick has to be tossed out now, meaning that if we want to know anything useful about Zoom the only place we can do any background research on him is Earth-2.  I want to go back, for twenty-four hours, and return with that information."

"You shouldn't go alone," Cisco said at the same time Caitlin blurted out, "his name might not be Jay Garrick."

"Um... what?" Cisco asked.

"Ah, well, when I tested his blood for evidence of him being a speedster, or at least a former one, there was some left over.  I... I retested it when we connected his loss of speed to Velocity; there were some anomalies in Jay's blood that I had attributed to his loss of connection to the Speed Force, but when I took a closer look at the results... he is dying.  He definitely took Velocity and has probably been having to continue using it to prolong his life and maintain his abilities as a speedster.  At the time, though, I'd thought... maybe we could find a way to help him, if we could find his doppleganger on this Earth.  But I haven't been able to find a Jay Garrick here who matches his appearance.  It's possible he just doesn't have enough of an internet presence to find him through social media or... that he died as a child, but..."

"He might not exist on this Earth," Harry cautioned.  "I doubt my daughter is unique in having no counterpart here."

"Do you have facial recognition software on your Earth?"  Joe spoke up.

Harry nodded slowly, "we do... but none that I have access to."

"If we can get a still of him off the security cameras, I can run it against the CCPD's criminal database; Cisco, Hartley, Ray... think one of you could whip something up that would do a search and compare with something like... Facebook?"  Joe was grinning.

"Felicity may already have something along those lines," Cisco posited. "I'll give her a call once I've gotten a still from our archive footage."

Hartley sighed quietly, leaning against the wall and wondering how he could still feel this tired.  He drank his coffee, nibbled at his donut half-heartedly, and tried to figure out what to make of this new information.  Jay wasn't just lying about being a hero, he was possibly - probably - lying about his name too.  Not to forget how he'd misrepresented the loss of his speed too.

"Cisco's right," Hartley spoke up.  "When you go back to your Earth, Harry, you shouldn't go alone.  Here we're a panic button call away from Ray flying in as the ATOM, but on your Earth you'd be alone."

"But you agree that its necessary?"  Harry sounded a little relieved.

Hartley nodded.  "Yeah.  I do."  They had indeed hit a wall with the speed cage, though Hartley had helped clean up a few spots where the math had been wonky.  If Harry thought his research on his earlier version of the cage would help them then Hartley was all for giving it a look.  Getting the Velocity research meant that Caitlin might be able to determine how long Jay's speed actually lasted when he was using the drug and how long it would take for the man to deteriorate once the Velocity wore off.  And learning who Jay really was, determining what drove the guy to being the murderous psychopath he was now, would better arm them for determining a strategy to take him down... and it might do Barry some good to know definitively that Zoom being a monster had nothing to do with the speed force.

And... if Hartley was being perfectly honest, he kind of wanted to know what the particle accelerator looked like when it wasn't made specifically to fail...

* * *

Barry wasn't even in the running for the 'Earth-2 Expedition Team' (as Cisco dubbed it, much to Harry's annoyance).  Caitlin didn't want to leave her patient, so she was out too.  Ray got super excited about going, until Hartley pointed out that he was Central City's main line of defense if, say, Weather Wizard or some other meta decided to come out to play while the Flash was benched.  Joe thought they should just wait until Barry was 'back up to speed' (and he looked a bit smug over his pun too), but Harry pointed out that the sooner the speed cage was finished, the sooner they could trap Zoom, save Jesse, and put this whole nightmare behind them.

If they waited for Barry to recover, then they might wind up side tracked by another attack from the evil speedster too.  No, they needed to push forward now.

Surprisingly, Cisco didn't want to go.  Oh, it made sense when Cisco explained the whole not wanting to be mistaken for his evil doppelganger and thrown in jail thing, but... something just felt off about it.

Which left Hartley... and his sprained wrist.  Caitlin was pretty adamant that Hartley not go, or at least not just Hartley and Harry.  (Harry insisted he could keep Hartley from playing basketball which led to Hartley throwing his paper plate at the older man... and calling him an asshole.)

The compromise was that both Cisco and Hartley would accompany Harry to Earth-2.  (Cisco was less than thrilled with this 'compromise'.)  Then, after further debate (which ended when Iris walked into the cortex and made them sum up everything they'd done so far... at which point she decided their departure schedule for them and glared at Harry when he tried to argue; proving his intelligence not to be mere boasting, Harry shut up fast) they decided that they'd leave that evening, once Harry had adapted two more versions of the gear he used to safely jump through the breach in the pipeline.  Once on Earth-2, they'd be able to easily avoid the night crew at STAR Labs, set up in Harry's panic room (apparently located about where the Time Vault was in their STAR Labs), and spend the day there running whatever computer searches they needed to while Harry retrieved any physical files they'd need in addition to the digital data.  Then they'd come back approximately 24-hours after they left.

Harry had dragged off Ray immediately to start working on the as of yet unnamed breach-jumping tech (Cisco had pitched two names and then immediately nixed them himself) and then the group had sort of... dispersed.

Back in his own lab, Hartley set up his flute again - he was so close to having the device attached to it tuned to the right frequency and once he did he'd be creating second version with a timer to take home and 'test' on his iPod speakers at home; his days of insomnia were numbered... - and was about to start playing when Cisco knocked on his door.  "Hey, Hartley, I've got something to show you.  Mind coming with me for a minute?"

"Sure."  Hartley set the flute back down and followed him to a room further down the hall from Cisco's usual work-space.

Barry and Caitlin were already there giving rather dubious looks to what appeared to be a pair of fancy sunglasses.  There were some unfinished sensors on the stems, however, that definitely didn't belong on regular sunglasses.

"So, I've, um... I've been designing these to help me control my vibes," Cisco told them nervously.

"When did you start designing them?" Hartley asked, glancing around for the plans themselves.  New tech always made him itch to take it apart or go over the designs with a highlighter and red pen.

"After Doctor Light ran out on us," Cisco admitted.  "Its... I've been adapting the system we used to let me view the visions I was having of that other timeline where..." he waved his hand dismissively, clearly not wanting to say the words 'where Wells killed me'.

"When did you even have time?" Barry gave his friend a concerned look.

Cisco shuffled and didn't really look at anyone.

"I guess Hartley isn't the only one who's been overworking himself the last few days," Caitlin observed dryly.

"Yeah..." Cisco flushed slightly.  "Not to the point of not sleeping, but I have been kinda... its'..." he sighed.  "It didn't actually take that long to throw the plans together for this, but there's something I didn't... there may be more to my powers than just visions.  I've been trying to trigger those too and its not working."

Barry and Caitlin both exploded into words, wanting to know what Cisco was talking about.  Cisco just gave Hartley a helpless look asking for help.

"When Cisco shot Zoom with the serum, I heard something coming from Cisco.  High pitched frequency just outside of the average hearing range, but... it was definitely there and I'm pretty sure its why Zoom didn't play catch with that dart."  Hartley shrugged, adding, "I didn't tell either of you because it wasn't my place to do so."

"Yeah, no, I get that," Barry sighed, rubbing a hand over his face before offering Cisco a smile.  "This is pretty cool, Cisco.  Just... be careful, okay?  I lucked out with the super healing, but if you get hurt trying to figure out your powers..."

"What he's saying is no more trying to figure out your powers without someone else there with you.  Preferably me, so I can stick you with needles when necessary," Caitlin told him.

"You sound like Doctor Fraiser from _Stargate_ ," Hartley told her.

Caitlin hummed for a second.  "Janet Fraiser... pretty, kind of delicate looking, tough to the point where SG-1 never disobeyed her no matter how much they grumbled?"  She grinned.  "I will take that comparison as a compliment."

"How it was meant," Hartley agreed.

"I'd have gone with Bones from _Star Trek_ ," Cisco admitted.

"Also a compliment," Caitlin decided.  "Now, seriously, how were you planning on tuning these..." she waved a hand toward the glasses, "what are you calling these?"

"Vibe goggles?"

"They're not goggles," Hartley objected.  "I have goggles; those are not goggles."

Barry snorted in amusement.  "The name can get fine tuned later."

"Right."  Cisco seemed a lot more relaxed as he outlined his plan for tuning the glasses to his 'vibe frequency'.  Which, unfortunately, included triggering another vision while Cisco was hooked up to a sensor.  Unfortunate because, well... the vibes seemed hard on Cisco.

"Anyway, I was hoping to finish up the goggles -"

"They're not goggles."

"- tomorrow, but if we're doing this Earth-2 thing ASAP, then... I guess this gets pushed back some.  I just... I really want these ready for when we catch Zoom in the speed cage.  There's no way he'll just tell us where he's stashed Jesse and I don't want Jay to use Jesse as a bargaining chip against Harry.  If I can vibe the location of his secret lair..."

"We can just go to Earth-2 and rescue her ourselves, without needing Jay to tell us where to look."  Barry looked somewhere between excited and pensive.  "It's too bad he didn't leave that stupid winged hat here," he grumbled.  "You could use that to practice on."

"Yeah, well, there's still Harry.  You vibed Jesse off him once, you could probably do it again and give him an update on how she's doing which he'd appreciate," Hartley chimed in.

"I was hoping to surprise him with the finished glasses."  Cisco grimaced when he realized he hadn't said 'goggles.'

"So how have you been working on triggering your other powers?" Caitlin redirected the conversation before Hartley could open his mouth to claim victory.

"I was scared and wanted to protect Barry when my powers triggered before.  It was like... everything just sort of focused in and I felt... something.  I don't know.  I've been trying to use what I remember feeling that night to bring that focus back, but nothing happens.  My visions don't really respond well to conscious control; what if this is the same way?"

"Then maybe learning better control over one aspect of your powers will help you figure out how this aspect works too," Barry offered.  "But don't think you have to figure out these abilities all at once, Cisco.  We've got most of a plan for dealing with Zoom so just... don't put all the weight of defeating him on yourself, okay?  Figuring this out as a team is something we're good at and..." he glanced at Hartley, looking a little guilty.  "Maybe if I'd taken up Hartley's offer of distracting Zoom, I could have hit him with the serum myself that night."

"Or you'd have gotten caught by the same frequency I used to immobilize him," Hartley countered, not even wanting to think of how badly that scenario could have gone.  "Let's not play 'what if' games, okay?"

Barry nodded, not seeming convinced.  But he was willing to drop it, which was good enough.

"Well, hopefully I'll be able to figure my abilities out without needing the life or death drama to go with it," Cisco joked weakly.

Hartley rolled his eyes.  "Knock on wood; you've just jinxed yourself."  Then he dodged with a laugh when Cisco tossed an oily rag at him.

* * *

"Such a shame, really, that I'll be missing out on nearly half of Oliver's visit," Hartley lamented in a tone of voice that conveyed the exact opposite sentiment.

"I'm sure he'll be just as heartbroken," Barry replied in an equally dry voice.

Ray just rolled his eyes, looking amused by the whole thing as he handed the two new Breach Jumpers (Cisco finally named the Faraday cage-like vests) over to Cisco and Hartley.  "I'm still so jealous; photograph everything, okay?  Maybe then it'll be like I was there myself."

"Knowing Cisco, half his pictures will be selfies," Hartley teased.  Cisco stuck his tongue out in the mature response.

Harry sighed theatrically.  "I'm surrounded by children," he muttered.

"Alright, so run us through this one more time," Hartley told the older scientist.

"We trigger the breach, then activate the vest's shielding and jump through the breach.  It takes about a minute to reach the other side and the energies of the breach should be stabilized on this side, but the... Breach Jumpers... should protect us from any energy spikes we encounter exiting on my Earth's side.  Certainly mine was able to absorb the energies on both sides when I jumped through before."  He paused, then added, "you might see things in there.  Snippets of other Earths, I think.  I saw people I recognized, but in situations I didn't, when I jumped here."

Hartley nodded and adjusted the backpack he was carrying.  It was shielded in the same mesh as Hartley and contained a laptop, extra batteries, a change of clothes (along with some pajamas because Hartley was not spending another night sleeping in jeans when he didn't have to), his Piper gloves, and sandwich fixings.  (Ray had looked very trollish indeed when he'd said that, smirking over at Harry who'd appeared two parts annoyed, one part amused.)  Cisco had a similar load (sans Piper gloves, of course) in his backpack.  

"We'll be arriving after everyone except the night security staff has gone home," Harry continued.  "Well, them and a few workaholics, but they should be in their labs or offices so we won't need to worry about them.  Security doesn't come into the pipeline where this breach is located either, so no one should notice our arrival.  Then we'll head for my panic room, which is located about where the time vault is here.  You two will stay there all day and, except for when I need to locate physical files and destroy the remaining vials of Velocity, I'll stay in there with you.  Then, about the same time tomorrow night, we jump back across with all the files on the cage and Velocity and Jay or..." he frowned, nose wrinkling a little in thought.  "Hunter Zolomon.  I still think that name sounds familiar."  Felicity had come through for them, her software matching Jay's appearance to the Facebook account of PhD student teaching ethics courses in the criminology department at Central City University.

_"Zolomon's father was a veteran who had PTSD issues after being honorably discharged.  Hunter's mom briefly separated from her husband, taking Hunter with them, until he finally sought out psychological help.  Apparently the two of them reconciled and they were one big happy family until his father's death from cancer.  Zolomon was out of state attending his dad's funeral when the accelerator overloaded.  The guy's Facebook profile is pretty active; he seems friendly, certainly not the psycho-killer sort."_

Hartley had resisted the urge to point out that most psycho-killers didn't seem the type until the charade finally had to end.  Jay hadn't seemed to be anything more than the hero he'd represented himself as.  Harrison had billed himself as a typically badly socialized scientist with awkwardly paternal moments.  After all, this Hunter Zolomon wasn't Zoom, just the guy unlucky enough to be the evil speedster's counterpart; knowing about this guy's life didn't really help them much when it came to what made Zoom tick.

"Alright, so... opening the breach," Cisco muttered, activating the Speed Cannon.

They all paused to watch the breach surge into view, a dazzling blue hole that reminded Hartley of the swirling vortex from _Stargate_.  Part of him wanted to pull a Daniel Jackson and just... reach out to touch it.  But that'd be a bad idea.  So bad.

Instead, Hartley activated his Breach Jumper, shivering a little at the sudden, tingly feeling it gave off (part Faraday cage, but definitely not all Faraday cage, that was for sure), and waved goodbye while Cisco (rather dramatically, in Hartley's opinion) bid the others farewell.  Then the Earth-2 Expedition Team jumped through the breach.

It wasn't just the outside of the breach that was reminiscent of _Stargate_ 's wormhole CGI.  The inside of the breach was a whirling cacophony of blue and Hartley would've covered his ears if he could've moved.  Like Harry warned, Hartley saw bits and pieces of other places.  A blond woman flying in the air without wings or any other visible means of support... Harrison Wells staring at a television screen in shock ("the real genius behind STAR Labs has finally revealed himself")... Eddie Thawne pulling out what looked like an FBI badge from his jacket... a scarlet clad speedster in a Central City not unlike their own...

And then Hartley was landing on his ass and staring dazedly up at the ceiling.

It took him a moment to process and realize that Cisco was calling his name in concern, gently shaking his shoulder while Harry pretended (badly) that he wasn't hovering worriedly or anything like that.

"I'm okay, just... a little sensory overload."  Hartley sat up, gingerly touching his hearing aids.  Everything sounded weird, too loud, too flat... he was having some problems differentiating where sounds were coming from.  "I don't think my aids handled the trip well."

"Oh, shit," Cisco muttered.  Then, signing along awkwardly as he spoke, "you can still hear me, right?"

"Yeah, but its... fuzzy?  I need to take my aids out and adjust them."  Which was going to suck.  "Harry, I'm going to need a few things so I can fix my hearing aids and sterilize them before I put them back in."

"Make a list when we get to the panic room and I'll find them for you."  Harry offered Hartley a hand up.

Hartley swayed a bit, dizzy when he stood, but Cisco grabbed on to his arm to steady him.  This was a terrible start to their twenty-four hour stay on Earth-2; it didn't really bode well for the day to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone!
> 
> So, I recommend all the movies mentioned in this chapter. They're all pretty amusing; Down Periscope is a particular favorite of mine. Though it does have some sexist 'humor' in it that can be cringe worthy at times. (Not that the same can't be said of Young Frankenstein or pretty much any comedy movie ever.)
> 
> Originally there was going to be more Earth-2 in this chapter, but more than their arrival there didn't fit. Next chapter should include a fight scene that will hopefully not suck (no promises), sightings of a particularly creepy menace, and Oliver and Felicity finally show up in Central City to check on how Barry's doing. Also, the panic room will not look like the Time Vault. It may have saved the show on sets to go that route, but that was just ridiculous plot-wise.
> 
> On another note, is everyone else enjoying season 4 so much more than 3 like I am? Its not up to beating out seasons 1 or 2 for me, but its definitely much more enjoyable than the Savitar arc. Still a lamentable lack of Hartley Rathaway, but considering that the actor playing Ralph is named Hartley I can't say there's a complete dearth of Hartley in the show... ;) (Ba-dum tsss)


End file.
